Letters Remain

Month: August 2009

  • The Five Whys

    Five Whys is “a question-asking method used to explore the cause/effect relationships underlying a particular problem. Ultimately, the goal of applying the 5 Whys method is to determine a root cause of a defect or problem”. Developed by Taiichi Ohno–one of the inventors of the Toyota Production System–the oft-cited example is as follows: My car…

  • The Problem with Happiness Research

    Talking of happiness, University of California philosopher Eric Schwitzgebel discusses the problem with the self-reporting of happiness for research purposes. If the intervention is obviously intended to increase happiness, participants may well report more happiness post-intervention simply to conform to their own expectations, or because they endorse a theory on which the intervention should increase happiness,…

  • The Universality of Happiness

    Or not. Research looking at how different cultures (specifically, Americans and Japanese) perceive the concept of happiness has shown that it’s not a universal constant, at least in terms of how we define it. [The researchers] systematically analyzed American and Japanese participants’ spontaneously produced descriptions of [happiness and unhappiness] and observed, as predicted, that whereas Americans…

  • Graduating into the Recession and What Next

    For recent graduates, those in their early 20’s and, well, almost everyone else, the job market at the moment is overwhelming bad. There’s hope, of course, and this interview between recent graduate and entrepreneur Alex J. Mann and Phila Lawyer discussing what it’s like graduating into one of the nastiest job markets in history is a good…

  • The Point of Economists

    Following Queen Elizabeth’s question to the economists—Why did no one see the crisis coming?—the Financial Times goes one further asking, What is the point of economists? If the economics profession could not warn the public about the credit crunch and the recession, what is the profession’s raison d’etre? Did this reflect, as some claim, that…

  • Emails Predicting Organisational Collapse

    Regardless of content, the email patterns inside organisations may be able to predict approaching crises. This is the conclusion of a study looking at how the communication between Enron employees changed as the company approached its 2001 bankrupcy. [Researchers] expected communication networks to change during moments of crisis. Yet the researchers found that the biggest…

  • The Agri-Intellectuals and the Omnivore’s Delusion

    Playing on the title of Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Missouri farmer Blake Hurst pens an extremely well argued and reasoned response to the criticisms the ‘agri-intellectuals’ pile on industrial farmers and their production methods—particularly those rearing livestock. Farming has always been messy and painful, and bloody and dirty. It still is. This is something…

  • The ‘Benefits’ of Organic

    After analysing all available evidence from the past 50 years, a study commissioned by the UK government’s Food Standards Agency has come to the conclusion that organic food is no healthier (in terms of nutritional value and any extra health benefits) than ‘ordinary’ food. From the blog of the FSA’s Chief Scientist: The most comprehensive review…

  • Determination, Long-Terms Goals, Success

    Determination and long-term goal-setting may be more contributory to success than intelligence, suggests research being conducted by Angela Duckworth and her contemporaries. These two traits (perseverance and keeping long-term goals in mind) are affectionately called ‘grit’ by researchers in the field and—according to a 2007 paper on the subject (pdf)—play an important role in many…

  • Steve Jobs and Circular Visualisations (Not Just Pie Charts)

    Pie charts have been having a bad time of it lately* and I can’t see things improving anytime soon. In one of the better articles looking at this humble chart, Brian Suda notes not only at what you can do instead, but what improvements you can make if you’re forced to use the pie chart.…