Recently, I was on a flight and as we were descending the pilot's voice came over the intercom and, tongue-in-cheek, he asked everyone to "turn off their books." It was a funny comment but it does hint at a broader sea change — more and more people are reading books on their Kindles and iPad's. [...]
Unlearning Statistics
August 31, 2009 By 1 Comment
"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies and statistics." Mark Twain This past Friday Bjorn Lomborg had a thoughtful editorial entitled Technology Can Fight Global Warming. As a professional technologist and futurist, I couldn’t agree more and I have written about this idea frequently. Nevertheless, I find Lomborg’s use of statistics highly unprofessional. [...]
Are We Unlearning Wisdom? Yes, and We Need to Stop!
February 21, 2009 By Leave a Comment
Are we unlearning wisdom? The fine folks at TED have done it again by offering an insightful 20-minute presentation by Barry Schwartz. Near the end of his talk, Schwart discusses why society might also want to unlearn some things about the use of incentives — such as why they don’t always work the way Economics [...]
All-State Insurance Unlearns
October 20, 2008 By Leave a Comment
All-State Insurance is now sending video games to customers between the ages of 50 and 75. According to this article, “ten hours of game playing turns the clock back 10 years in terms of memory, useful field of view, processing visual information, and general cognitive functions.” More important, the technology could reduce the risk of [...]
Unlearning Mortgages
September 22, 2008 By Leave a Comment
Like so many other investors, the past week has my head spinning with the latest news of a massive government bail out of yet another distressed industry. There is, undoubtedly, a great deal of blame to go around but I think most people would agree that at the bottom of the crisis is a boat-load [...]
Unlearning the Written Word
June 19, 2008 By Leave a Comment
What if I told you that you could improve your reading comprehension rate by 20 percent. Would you do it? Since you are reading this blog, my guess is that the answer would be "yes." Well, you can, but it will require that you unlearn how you currently access the written word. I recently wrote [...]
Do Lawyers Prevent Unlearning?
June 9, 2008 By Leave a Comment
The Mayo Clinic is now operating a pilot project to offer "virtual consults" to patients living far away. The idea that a doctor must be physically present when conferring with a patient is going to be difficult for many doctors and health care providers to "unlearn," but the practice can save time, money and, ultimately, [...]
