Tag Archives: communication
Amazing Ayumu
Ayumu is amazing. Numbers 1-9 flash across a screen for 210 milliseconds, less time than it takes the human eye to scan across the screen, before turning into white squares. Ayumu reaches out and touches each white box in the correct numerical order. The rest of Koyoto University’s subjects get the order right about 40% of the time, compared to Ayumu’s amazing 80%. Click the link above to witness Ayumu outsmart her peers, and click http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20071208/fob2.asp if you want to learn more about the experiment pitting chimp brain-power against humans, where the chimps win. And we wonder about the Peter Principle?
The Problem With Speed-Reading
Do you tend to scan or speed-read through material to figure out what it’s all about? Go straight to the Executive Summary, then stop? You might be saving time, but you may be missing out on some of the most interesting content.
In the 2001 DNA-sequencing race between the the government and Craig Venter’s Celera Genomics, victory was declared when only one half of the genome was sequenced (a haploid). In other words, they only sequenced what was inherited in one half, not the other.
Now the J. Craig Venter Institute has decoded the other half of Venter’s DNA and discovered that 44% of known genes displayed variations (between the versions inheritied from each parent). Additionally, after the sequencing of the first genome (actually a composite from 5 individuals) scientists had estimated that about 99.9% of all human genomes are identical. Looking at the other half, however, yielded a 46% increase in these locations from 2.8 to 4.1 million, lowering the 99% identical estimate down to the 98% to 99% range.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D__Qx4Bsotg
Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud”
The Lakewood District inspiring Wordsworth’s daffodil poem delivers the classic as a rap remix 200 years later, hoping to inspire a new generation to see what the fuss is about
(Source: http://www.youtube.com/)
Now Let’s Talk About Me…
Imagine this newsletter I received today.
- Nine bullet-pointed links
- Five points start with the company name
- Three more continue the hard sell, but manage to refrain from mentioning the name
- A final point mentioning a recently-released study may be of interest to their target audience, but by this point it’s obvious where this item will be headed as well
If they’re this self-centered when they’re trying to woo you, what will their priorities be after you sign? This is a relatively successful firm, and the attitude they typify is also one of the reasons management consultants have a less than stellar reputation. This attitude is also what motivates many consultants to venture out to start their own firm. We believe our clients are our number one priority. Through service to them we hope to remove some of the tarnish on our profession, one client at a time.
To make our communications more effective, we need to shift our thinking from “What information do I need to convey?” to “What questions do I want my audience to ask?
Chip and Dan Heath, Made To Stick