Tuesday, February 11, 2025

Can You Recognize Emotions Given Just the Eyes? Try It

https://socialintelligence.labinthewild.org/mite

Your score is 28 out of 36.

Your score is equal or better than 64% of all participants.


Exercise Recommendation Test

Given descriptions of people, learn how good you are at finding optimal physical activities for them. Compare yourself to others! This study takes around 12 minutes. Try it!


How quikcly can you learn a new manual skill?

Take this 10 minute test, find out and compare yourself to others. Try it!


Decision-Making Study

What is your decision-making style? Take this 8-minute test to find out! Try it!



What is your Wiki Knowledge Score?

Find out in just 5 minutes how knowledgeable you are! Try it!


Spatial Reasoning Test!

How well can you visualize objects in space? Find out and compare yourself to others.
The test typically takes 15 minutes. Try it!


 

Friday, February 07, 2025

Now That's a Gem - Productivity Hack - Lead Time Planning


A manager once told me his number one personal productivity tool was sitting down for ten minutes, at the end of every work day, and writing out his to-do list for the next day.

I remember something similar in "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living" by D Carnegie - the laggards leave the office early to "go spend time with the family" whereas the go-getters plan the next day.

Shame on me though :)

But, wait! What are the ten things this person learned at McKinsey?

  1. There are no experts in business - they've just mastered the "act". There's a reason they pay these young smart consultants from McKinseay and Bain.
  2. The answers are usually hidden in plain sight. That is, the information is accessible. It takes so analysis to convert it into actionable insights.
  3. MBAs are a waste of money. This person did two years of history at Oxford and concluded : in a few weeks of formal study, you can learn enough about economics, finance and strategy. It helps to read about two dozen good books on strategy. (I guess speed reading comes naturally to someone who's doing a PhD in history at Oxford😊)
  4. No jerks. Ever. Would colleagues want to sit next to you on a long flight? (the "flight test"). Bascially : follow the no a$$hole rule!
  5. Everything's a grid. As in - important/urgent risk/reward pain/gain. 
  6. The basics matter - agenda before meeting, lead time planning for next day, minutes and next-steps!
  7. Start at the end and go backwards. State the hypothesis and look for evidence the supports/contradicts.
  8. Don't look to consultants to save your company. They can only offer recommendations.
  9. Everyone is in sales - like it or not. 
  10. Manage upwards - handy for the case that your company doesn't follow rule 4 😊 Example : DD works for "the Rottweiler" who works his team to death. Predecessors who burnt out focused on mastering work-work while DD mastered meta-work - in this case, he figured out the office phone-system so he figured out a way to let the Rottweiler's calls go to voicemail. He'd listen to the message at his leisure, do the bare minimum and then use the phone system to record a message to his boss to be delivered later - at 10:30 at night! The Rottweiler was actually telling DD that he was working too hard!
BTW, Brett Arends is the guy who claimed he was going to invest in Russian stocks back in 2014. How did that play out?

Sunday, February 02, 2025

If You're On Android, this is How Your Brain Works! Be Warned


From Michael Platt's excellent book: "The Leader's Brain"

Two years ago, Wharton neuroscience postdoctoral fellow Feng Sheng and I gathered groups of smartphone users to see if they had an emotional and social connection with their brand. 

(they used fMRI to observe brain activity)

Apple users showed empathy for their own brand: The reward-related areas of the brain were activated by good news about Apple, and the pain and negative feeling parts of the brain were activated by bad news, they were neutral about any kind of Samsung news. This is exactly what we see when people empathize with other people—particularly their family and friends—but don't feel the joy and pain of people they don’t know.

Samsung users, on the other hand, showed no increased activity in either area when they were shown positive and negative news about their brand. Interestingly, though, the pain areas were activated by good news about Apple, and the reward areas were activated by bad news about the rival company — some serious schadenfreude, or “reverse empathy.”

If I were the Chief Marketing Officer of Samsung, I would be worried. Samsung customers' brains tell us they’re just not that socially and emotionally connected to the brand, and that makes the company much more vulnerable to a potential competitor (just as a weak workplace culture can lead to higher turnover).