Digital Gems

The country Turkey has changed its name to Türkiye (pronounced as Turkey but with a soft "e" on the end), which is what Turks have called their country since 1923. Many other countries have done this over the years. For example Swaziland officially became Eswatini in 2018, the Netherlands dropped the use of Holland in 2020,the Czech Republic became Czechia in 2013, Rhodesia became Zimbabwe in 1980, Sri Lanka dropped all references to Ceylon in 2011, and Burma became Myanmar in 1989.

Most people feel that, within the constraints they need to navigate, they are in control of their decisions. But we often automatically follow a train of thought or an external cue without noticing the selective factors in our attention. This phenomenon is called the attentional bias, and it affects many of the decisions we make. When our unconscious takes the lead The attentional bias can be defined as our tendency to focus on certain elements while ignoring others. Jonathan Baron, Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, explains: “Attentional bias can be understood as failure to look for evidence against an initial possibility, or as failure to consider alternative possibilities.” Our attention can be biased by external events as well as internal thoughts and emotions. For instance, being hungry may make you pay more attention to food, and holding certain beliefs will skew your thinking towards decisions that are aligned with these beliefs. A famous example of attentional bias based on external events is found in cigarette smokers. Research using eye-tracking technology shows that, due to their brain’s altered reward system, pay more attention to smoking cues in their environment. That’s partly why ​​a staggering 75% of quitters return to smoking within a year. We tend to pay more attention to salient information, whether it’s relevant or not. In an experiment, Dr. Jan Smedslund, Professor Emeritus and Specialist in Clinical Psychology, asked a group of nurses to look through a hundred cards representing what they were told were excerpts from the files of a hundred patients.  For each patient, the card indicated whether the symptom was present or absent, and whether the disease was then found to be present or absent. Some patients had symptoms but no disease, others did not have symptoms but had the disease, some others did not have any symptoms nor the disease, etc. The nurses were asked to figure out whether there was a relationship between a particular symptom and a particular disease. Now, let’s have a look at the table below, which shows the repartition of the cases: Disease present Disease absent Symptom present 37 17 Symptom absent 33 13 Based on this table, Pr. Jonathan Baron points out that it is possible to determine that “a given patient has about a 70% chance of having the disease, whether this patient has the symptom or not.” In other words, “the symptom is useless in determining who has the disease and who does not, in this group of patients.” And yet, after going through the cards, 85% of the nurses concluded that there was a relationship between the symptom and the disease. Dr. Jan Smedslund concludes that “they tend to depend exclusively on the frequency of true positive cases in judging relationships.” Pr. Jonathan Baron adds that “many other experiments have supported [the] general conclusion that subjects tend to ignore part of the table. (…) People who have the chance do not inquire about the half of the table to which they do not attend.” But attentional bias can arise from within our minds as well. In a similar experiment, researchers Richard Nisbett and Lee Ross asked participants the following question: “Does God answer prayers?” Potential answers can be explored with a similar table: Prayer No prayer Manifestation Yes No No manifestation No No Again, people who pray will be more likely to answer “yes” to this question, justifying it by saying “​​many times I’ve asked God for something, and He’s given it to me”, and ignoring the other possibilities. Pr. Jonathan Baron explains: “If you think that God answers your prayers, it stands to reason that some piece of good fortune is a result of prayer.” However, he doesn’t think attentional bias is a fixed trait. He adds: “Further thinking might involve looking for alternative possibilities (such as the possibility that the good fortune would have occurred anyway) and looking for evidence that might distinguish these possibilities from our favored possibility (what happens when you do not pray). Attentional bias can therefore be correctable by actively open-minded thinking.” How to manage the attentional bias While it is impossible to completely get rid of the attentional bias, being aware of the existence of these unconscious processes that act like an invisible puppeteer behind our choices is a first step in reducing their impact on our decision-making. By applying metacognitive strategies to the management of your attention, you can take back control of some of your train of thoughts. Pay attention to your attention. Whenever you feel your attention being automatically pulled into a specific direction, ask yourself why this is the case. Is it a particularly salient piece of information, a cue that is linked to a past or current addiction, an answer that perfectly aligns with your existing values and beliefs? Go beyond the most obvious answer. If you find the answer to a question completely obvious, chances are some of your thinking is based on heuristics that may not be the only way to approach the problem at hand. Are there any alternative explanations? Did you fail to consider a different point of view? What answer would someone with different pre-existing beliefs give to the same question? You can take notes while you brainstorm, and list all of the alternative explanations you come up with. If you are in a work environment, this exercise also works well as a team. Cultivate open-mindedness. None of the previous metacognitive strategies will work if your tunnel vision prevents you from honestly considering the unconscious processes that guide your decisions, and if you are unable to consider alternative ways of thinking. Being open minded is not something you just decide to become. It can be cultivated by asking good questions, reading books outside of your usual interests, and connecting with people who think differently. Proactively managing your attentional bias requires a bit of effort, but it will make you a better thinker, leading to better decisions and a higher sense of self-awareness. It’s worth giving it a try! The post Attentional bias: the invisible puppeteer behind our decisions appeared first on Ness Labs.

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Ichthyosaur about 10 metres long and dating back 180m years discovered at Rutland Water

In her new book, “The Myth of Closure: Ambiguous Loss in a Time of Pandemic and Change,” Pauline Boss considers what it means to reach “emotional closure” in a state of unnamable grief or ambiguous loss. Boss teases out how one can mourn something that cannot always be described. The pandemic has been rife with “ambiguous loss,” A sense of “frozen grief” pervades great swathes of the global community. Boss believes that by rethinking and lending language to the nature of loss, we might get closer to understanding it.

TikTok is preparing to launch a new service that will turn its viral food videos into meals you can actually order and enjoy. THey plan to open 300 locations that will start delivering in 2022 and more than 1,000 restaurants by the end of the year.

A limited supply of qualified workers poses a challenge as facilities are built around the world to bolster the supply of semiconductors.

Single-Family Rental Trade Association Butchers Analysis of Investor Home Purchase Reports.

​​The number of recent influenza cases is typical for this time of year, but the last time flu cases reached this level was before the coronavirus pandemic began.

Unemployment is at 3.9%. Is this full employment? Some Americans aren't so sure. We look at this complex situation through the eyes of someone who has been job hunting for a long time.

As of December 31, 2020, the rate of African-American homeownership is 44.1 percent, whereas the rate of White homeownership is 74.5 percent. At all income ranges, even at incomes above $100,000, homeownership rates are lower for African-American households than for White households.

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As people retire, there will be fewer people in the total pool of existing workers and fewer people will also be looking for work. Even if none of the remaining people who are unemployed find a job, those retirements can drive unemployment down purely as an artifact of how we calculate the unemployment rate.

At least 40 properties in the United States sold for $50 million or more last year, a 35% increase from 2020, and at least eight sold for at least $100 million, a 300% jump from the prior year.

For the fifth year in a row, we’ve doubled the number of our monthly active users, going from 24 million MAU on December 31st, 2020, to over 50 million by the end of 2021.

The share of first-time homebuyers fell to 26% in November 2021, the lowest since January 2014. Around 24% of existing homes were purchased with all cash--only 7% of first-time home buyers could afford this approach compared to 30% of non-first-time buyers.

According to Chainalysis, illicit activities like cybercrime, money laundering, and terrorist finance accounted for 0.15% of $15.8T total crypto transactions conducted in 2021, reaching $14B and up 79% from $7.8B the previous year.

Mortgage rates rose to their highest level since May 2020 to 3.22% for 30-year-fixed-rate loans, up 3.11% from the week ending December 2021 and 2.65% one year ago which was the lowest on record.

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Like the rest of New Things Under the Sun, this article will be updated as the state of the academic literature evolves; you can read the latest version here. Suppose we think there should be more research on some topic: asteroid deflection, the efficacy of social distancing, building safe artificial intelligence, etc. How do we get scientists to work more on the topic? Buy it One approach is to just pay people to work on the topic. Capitalism! The trouble is, this kind of approach can be expensive. To estimate just how expensive, Myers (2020) looks at the cost of inducing life scientists to apply for grants they would not normally apply for. His research context is the NIH, the US’ biggest funder of biomedical science. Normally, scientists seek NIH Funding by proposing their own research ideas. But sometimes the NIH wants researchers to work on some kind of specific project, and in those cases it uses a “request for applications” grant. Myers wants to see how big those grants need to be to induce people to change their research topics to fit the NIH’s preferences. Myers has data on all NIH “request for applications” (RFA) grant applications from 2002 to 2009, as well as the publication history of every applicant. RFA grants are ones where NIH solicits proposals related to a prespecified kind of research, instead of letting investigators propose their own topics (which is the bulk of what NIH does). Myers tries to measure how much of a stretch it is for a scientist to do research related to the RFA by measuring the similarity of the text between the RFA description and the abstract of each scientist’s most similar previously published article (more similar texts contain more of the same uncommon words). When we line up scientists left to right from least to most similar to a given RFA, we can see the probability they apply for the grant is higher the more similar they are (figure below). No surprise there. From Myers (2020) Myers can also do the same thing with the size of the award. As shown below, scientists are more likely to apply for grants when the money on offer is larger. Again, no surprise there. From Myers (2020) The interesting thing Myers does is combine all this information to estimate a tradeoff. How much do you need to increase the size of the grant in order to get someone with less similarity to apply for the grant at the same rate as someone with higher similarity? In other words, how much does it cost to get someone to change their research focus? This is a tricky problem for a couple reasons. First, you have to think about where these RFAs come from in the first place. For example, if some new disease attracts a lot of attention from both NIH administrators and scientists, maybe the scientists would have been eager to work on the topic anyway. That would overstate the willingness of scientists to change their research for grant funding, since they might not be willing to change absent this new and interesting disease. Another important nuance is that bigger funds attract more applicants, which lowers the probability any one of them wins. That would tend to understate the willingness of scientists to change their research for more funding. For instance, if the value of a grant increases ten-fold, but the number of applicants increases five-fold, then the effective increase in the expected value of the grant has only doubled (I win only a fifth as often, but when I do I get ten times as much). Myers provides some evidence that the first concern is not really an issue and explicitly models the second one. The upshot of all this work is that it’s quite expensive to get researchers to change their research focus. In general, Myers estimates getting one more scientist to apply (i.e., getting one whose research is typically more dissimilar than any of the current applicants, but more similar than those who didn’t apply) requires increasing the size of the grant by 40% or nearly half a million dollars over the life of a grant! Sell it Given that price tag, maybe a better approach is to try and sell scientists on the importance of the topic you think is understudied. Academic scientists do have a lot of discretion in what they choose to study; convince them to use it on the topic you think is important! The article “Gender and what gets researched” looked at some evidence that personal views on what’s important do affect what scientists choose to research: women are a bit more likely to do female-centric research then men, and men who are exposed to more women (when their schools go coed) are more likely to do gender-related research. But we also have a bit of evidence from other domains that scientists do shift priorities to work on what they think is important. Perhaps the cleanest evidence comes from Hill et al. (2021), which looks at how scientists responded to the covid-19 pandemic. In March 2020, it became clear to practically everyone in the world that more information on covid-19 and related topics was the most important thing in the world for scientists to work on. The scientific community responded: by May 2020 and through the rest of the year, about 1 in every 20-25 papers published was related to covid-19. And I don’t mean 1 in every 20-25 biomedical papers - I mean all papers! From Hill et al. (2021) This was a stunning shift by the standards of academia. For comparison, consider Packalen and Bhattacharya (2011), which looks at how biomedical research changed over the second-half of the twentieth century. Packalen and Bhattacharya classify 16 million biomedical publications, all the way back to 1950 and look at the gradual changes in disease burden that arise due to the aging of the US population and the growing obesity crisis. As diseases associated with being older and more obese became more prevalent in the USA, surely it was clear that those diseases were more important to research. Did the scientific establishment respond by doing more research related to those diseases? Sort of. As diseases related to the aging population become more common, the number of articles related to those diseases does increase. But the effect is a bit fragile - it disappears under some statistical models and reappears in others. Meanwhile, there seems to be no discernible link between the rise of obesity and research related to diseases more prevalent in a heavier population. Further emphasizing the extraordinary pivot into covid-related research, most of this pivot preceded changes in grant funding. The NIH did shift to issuing grants related to covid, but with a considerable lag, leaving most scientists to do their work without grant support. As illustrated below, the bulk of covid related grants arrived in September, months after the peak of covid publications (the NSF seems to have moved faster). From Hill et al. (2021) On the one hand, I think these studies do illustrate the common-sense idea that if you can change scientists beliefs about what research questions are important, then you can change the kind of research that gets done. But on the other hand, the weak results in Packalen and Bhattacharya (2011) are a bit concerning. Why isn’t there a stronger response to changing research needs, outside of global catastrophes? It’s hard I would point to two challenges to swift responses in science; these are also likely reasons why Myers (2020) finds it so expensive to induce scientists to apply for grants they would not normally apply for. Both reasons stem from the fact that a scientific contribution isn’t worth much unless you can convince other scientists it is, in fact, a contribution. The first challenge with convincing scientists to work on a new topic is there need to be other scientists around who care about the topic. This is related to the model presented in Akerlof and Michaillat (2018). Akerlof and Michaillat present a model where scientists’ work is evaluated by peers who are biased towards their own research paradigms. They show that if favorable evaluations are necessary to stay in your career (and transmit your paradigm to a new generation), then new paradigms can only survive when the number of adherents passes a critical threshold. Intuitively, even if you would like to study some specific obesity-related disease because you think it’s important, if you believe few other scientists agree, then you might choose not to study it, since it will be such a slog getting recognition. There’s a coordination challenge - without enough scholars working in a field, scholars might not want to work in a field. (This paper is also discussed in more detail here) The second challenge is that, even if there is a critical mass of scientists working on the topic, it may be hard for outsiders to make a significant contribution. That might make outsiders reluctant to join a field, and hence slow its growth. We have a few pieces of evidence that this is the case. Hill et al. (2021) quantify research “pivots” by looking at the distribution of journals cited in a scientists career and then measuring the similarity of journals cited in a new article to the journals cited in the scientist’s last three years. For example, my own research has been in the field of economics of innovation and if I write another paper in that vein, it’s likely to cite broadly the same mix of journals I’ve been citing (e.g., Research Policy, Management Science, and various general economics journals). Hill and coauthors’ measure would classify this as being a minimum pivot of close to 0. I also have written about remote work, and that was a bit of a pivot for me; the work cited a lot of journals in fields I didn’t normally cite up until this point (Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, but also plenty of economics journals). Hill and coauthors’ measure would classify this as an intermediate pivot, greater than 0 but a lot less than 1. But if I were to completely leave ec...

Sociologist Dr. Andrew Perrin argued that the threat of populist authoritarianism is another reason why democracies should seek to address climate change adequately. Conservatives replied in predictable ways without really grappling with the underlying implications of the paper: two forms of governance are necessary but conflict with one another. On the one side we have popular sovereignty/self-determination and on the other we have rights and protections for individuals and minorities. We need to find a way to bolster both to strengthen democracy.

Median sales prices rising for existing single-family homes in all but one of 183 measured markets in the third quarter of 2021. Austin-Round Rock, TX saw the greatest price appreciation (33.5%), followed by Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island, FL (32%), Boise City-Nampa, ID (31.5%), Ocala, FL (29.7%), and Punta Gorda, FL (27.5%).

But it's not inflation, it's limited bandwidth.

Welcome to this edition of our Tools for Thought series, where we interview founders on a mission to help us better manage our thoughts, emotions, and knowledge. Kai Koch is the co-founder of Ahead, a mobile application designed to help people master their emotions in just five minutes a day. Developed in partnership with psychologists, Ahead uses behavioral science to teach emotional habits, so you can become more calm and conscious. It features short lessons, a progress tracker, and a space for guided reflection. It’s a bit like an emotional pocket coach. In this interview, we talked about the science-based benefits of emotional intelligence, the problem with traditional self-help content, the ripple effect of a high emotional quotient, the key difference between IQ and EQ, and much more. Enjoy the read! Hi Kai, thank you so much for agreeing to this interview. Emotional intelligence has only recently been put on the map. What does it mean exactly to be emotionally intelligent?  Thank you for having me. Great question. There are many definitions of emotional intelligence flying around. A simple one is this: the ability to notice and manage emotions. For example, an emotionally intelligent husband would notice when he’s getting angry and stop himself from doing anything stupid — like calling his wife a rhinoceros. Or an emotionally intelligent wife would be able to motivate her husband with charm, not pressure, to take out the trash. Most of us quickly recognize people with high EQ: they are highly respected, connected, and successful. I would disagree though that emotional intelligence has only recently been put on the map — it’s just been called different names in the past: social skills, manners, behaving like a grown up. What’s new is that people realize that improving their EQ is far more impactful for their lives than, for example, improving their Excel or French skills. That’s a great point about the long history of emotional intelligence. Now, what’s the origin story behind Ahead’s mission of mastering your emotions? My co-founder John and I have known each other for fourteen years and this is our second venture together. The idea for Ahead was born in a very intense period while in that previous company. I lost a lot of my hair and we both lost our relationships at the time. It became obvious to us that we — like most — have some quirks and unhelpful habits that were standing between us and success, both in our private and professional lives. But as we tried to get emotionally smarter, the self-improvement books, TED talks, and courses we used were a huge disappointment. Lots of inspiring words, but when it came to actually making it work in real life, they sucked. We’re living in the 21st century, but we still try to teach cognitive skills by making students listen to a teacher’s wise words — when what’s really needed is to practice those skills yourself. You can’t teach children to ride a bike by giving them a “ride-a-bike” book to read. Why try to teach how to stay cool, content, or charming that way? But people do keep on trying to acquire these skills by reading books, and personal development in general is a massive market. How is Ahead’s approach to self-improvement different from other solutions? We don’t need bogus gurus selling us their 3, 5 or 10 secrets to a better me by tomorrow, and still, that industry is $70 billion large. We need a learning environment that helps us try things out ourselves and learn by doing. A book lying on our nightstand or a coach we see once a month can’t help us do that. Our smartphone on the other hand can: it’s with us when emotions actually happen, allowing us to improve right then and there. It adjusts to what we need, giving us tailored advice and reminders when we need them. And it connects us with people on the same journey. Ahead is not about passively consuming advice. It’s about you finding what works for yourself: how to notice your (or others’) emotions are rising, how to best manage them? All of that put into an app that’s interactive and fun, that feels like a game, not like a chore. Because as soon as things become complex or boring, we all quit, even when it comes to our deepest dreams. Talking about complexity… It can be difficult to quantify something as complex as emotions. How exactly does Ahead monitor progress and suggest improvements? You are right. It’s harder to measure how much better you learned to handle your emotions than how much weight you lost. But it can be done. We’ve worked hard to build tools that help you gain clarity on your emotional moments and on what to improve. We’ve developed fun surveys that show you how those close to you already see the progress you’re making. We’ve designed your journey so you notice how you’re solving harder and harder challenges as you level up. And whenever you learn something about yourself, we use that to give you a learning path that’s even better tailored to your experiences, needs, and goals. Do you think there are any instances where EQ trumps IQ? I personally don’t think we should look at this from the angle of “which is better”. What’s exciting is that our IQ is more or less set in stone from birth, but our EQ can be trained like a muscle throughout our lives. None of us is at mercy of our emotions. Some research suggests that up to 60% of our job performance depends on our EQ. Of course our romantic relationships and friendships rely on it almost entirely. And even our health benefits from worrying or screaming less. And the better your EQ, the better you can improve other skills: once you know how to overcome emotions that keep you from getting better, you can learn anything. Then you know how to floss regularly or exercise — even if you don’t feel like it. The ripple effect sounds amazing. Why do you think people start using Ahead in the first place? The motivations to use Ahead are manifold. We see people looking to improve their (romantic) relationships or further accelerate their career. The unifying characteristic is that they all have a growth mindset. They believe that EQ can be improved. They believe they have what it takes to improve: They’ve made their way through challenging studies and jobs, built trustful relationships, and raised kind children. We have a channel where we collect all feedback from our users. It still awes me to read all the messages from people around the world that managed to get their frustration and anger outbursts under control — this is incredibly motivating for us in the team. What about you… How do you personally use Ahead? For me, Ahead has become a tool that helps me to understand myself better. I use it every day as an “extension” of my emotional brain. By now, observing myself and understanding what triggers my behaviors has become a little bit of a game to me. And I’m always excited to learn new techniques from our community of users to help me better recognize and manage emotions. There’s still so much to achieve around emotional intelligence. Where would you like Ahead to be in the next few years? We see it this way: evolution created emotions to keep us safe from lions and reproduce. But today emotions like fear, anger, sadness, etc. often doesn’t help, but hinders us. The good thing is: we are not at the mercy of our emotions — we can learn to manage them. We can learn the most helpful skill there is to be happy, successful, and connected. The bad thing is: So far we never did. We don’t learn EQ skills at school, university, or at work – and only if we’re lucky, do we randomly pick up a trick or two before we’re old. We want to change that and enable all of us to better manage emotions. So that we can all be happier together. Thank you so much for your time, Kai! Where can people learn more about Ahead and give it a try? You can download Ahead here and give it a try. We would love to hear your feedback! The post Become more calm and conscious with Kai Koch, co-founder of Ahead appeared first on Ness Labs.

We often hear advice about how self-reflection can help us learn more about our true inner selves and can help resolve interpersonal conflicts. However, self-reflection should not be reserved for our personal lives only; it can also be richly rewarding for our professional careers. Self-reflection can be defined as the process of replaying recent experiences in our minds to discover insights about ourselves. Researchers describe it as “a personal process that can deepen one’s understanding of self and can lead to significant discoveries or insights.” These insights can include clues to our values, clarity about our behaviors, and the sources of our knowledge. Self-reflection is also a tool that helps us understand where we come from and how we define successes and failures for ourselves. It is an opportunity to test our assumptions about the world around us and uncover where we can grow and improve. Essentially, time spent on self-reflection creates a chance to learn more about ourselves and what we need to grow personally and professionally. Self-reflection for job performance When it comes to job performance, people tend to believe that practice always makes perfect. The more often we practice learning a new skill, the more likely we will be to master relevant tasks. However, a study suggests that reflection is a much more powerful learning tool when it comes to job performance. In the study, 101 employees at a large company were assigned to two groups: reflection or practice. The practice group spent the last 15 minutes of their day participating in regular job training, while the reflection group spent their last 15 minutes journaling about their experiences that day and the lessons learned from their training. All participants completed a skills test at the end of their training. Researchers found that those in the reflection group scored an average of 15 more points on the assessment than the practice group. The study shows the value of allocating time for reflection to increase new employees’ skills and knowledge. Engaging in self-reflection may also improve your job performance by protecting your mental health, and more specifically by helping you avoid burnout. In a study of English teachers in Iran, researchers found that teachers who spent more time reflecting on the day’s activities were less likely to experience burnout. In addition, the researchers suggested that those who engaged in self-reflection had a stronger emotional attachment and dedication to their job It may feel counter-intuitive, but self-reflection doesn’t have to be a solo process. ​​Having a colleague willing to help you can strengthen your reflection process. It can also allow you to form closer bonds with trusted colleagues and give you the chance to hear insights from others that you may not have seen yourself.  Dr. Rebecca Finley from Thomas Jefferson University suggests that mentors and colleagues can assist you by asking prompting questions such as: what happened, why does it matter, and what do you want to do now? Or: where are you right now, and where do you want to be? Reflecting on your professional experiences and learning from them can influence your career choices. Perhaps reflecting on a presentation you gave makes you discover you may need to take some public speaking classes, or perhaps you decide to hire an executive coach after you struggle to handle a conversation with your manager. You may also find a mismatch between what you value and the career path you have chosen, and you must make decisions about what you will do next. Reflection prompts action, so you can use the lessons you learned about yourself to take the next step forward in your professional life. How to practice self-reflection at work Researchers created a multi-step process for individuals who wish to reflect on their experiences. Based on their approach, here are some tips that can help you reflect on your work experiences. Find a quiet place: A quiet location with no interruptions is crucial for reflection. If the office is too loud during the day, consider waiting until the evening to sit down and review what went well, what didn’t go so well, and what you plan to do next. Record your thoughts. Journaling is a powerful reflection tool. Whether you decide to use an app or a good old notebook, make sure to write down your thoughts so your self-reflection practice becomes an actionable thinking tool. Examine everything. As you are replaying what you experienced at work in your mind, think about each decision you made along the way. What was the context when you made the decision? What did you accomplish or not accomplish by making this decision? What knowledge did you have that contributed to your choice? Imagine the alternatives. Ask “what if” questions. What would have happened if you made different decisions during the process or project? Would you have gotten closer to your goals or not? Organize your insights. Do you see any trends or patterns in your discoveries? Group them to analyze them more easily and decide which ones are the most relevant to your work. Turn your reflection into action. Decide if there are any actions that you need to take as a result of this process. Some situations may call for immediate next steps, while others can be integrated into your professional life over time. Self-reflection is a great tool that can help us learn more about ourselves on our career journey. The process can help us better understand our beliefs and behaviors, and inform the next steps of our professional growth. Self-reflection is also helpful if you are questioning some of your recent decisions, are experiencing a disconnect between your values and your actions, or are in the middle of a high-stress situation. Remember, whether you decide to reflect on your own or with a colleague, it is essential to find a quiet space without distractions. While we all have competing priorities, carving out time to learn more about ourselves is crucial for guiding ourselves towards our career dreams. The post The power of self-reflection at work appeared first on Ness Labs.

Whether you are trying to create an online course or write an article, it can be hard to generate good ideas. Whenever you feel stuck, it can be helpful to boost your creativity with a systematic approach. The Zwicky box is a simple and effective way to create many unique ideas by breaking the problem down into categories, adding values to each category, and combining these values to create unique answers. The secret behind the man who discovered dark matter Fritz Zwicky was one of the most prolific scientists of the twentieth century. The Swiss astronomer wrote over three hundred articles, ten books, held fifty patents, developed jets and rocket propulsion systems, and discovered dark matter. He also found over a hundred supernovae by himself, and he was credited with coining the term “supernova”. For his work in astronomy, he was awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1973 for “his many distinguished contributions to the understanding of the constituents of the Galaxy and the Universe.” He also received the Medal for Freedom in 1949 from President Truman for his innovation. To say that Zwicky had the incredible ability to generate unique solutions to the problems he faced is an understatement. Yet, many do not know his creativity, problem-solving, and ideation method. His secret sauce is the Zwicky Box (also called “morphological analysis”), a simple yet powerful strategy for generating ideas and solving problems. In 1971, Zwicky wrote: “I feel that I have finally found the philosopher’s stone in what I call the morphological outlook and method.” According to him, the Zwicky box could increase the efficiency of our brains by 100 times. Zwicky’s strategy for solving problems and generating answers is simple. Take a problem, break it down into categories, add various values into each category, and link the values together to create unique combinations. Here is an example of what a Zwicky box for building an app looks like: The problem with how we think “Zwicky believed that if only we could free ourselves from our pedestrian patterns of thought and learn to think morphologically, the future could be shaped by our images – however bold – rather than by the inertias of existing institutions and investments.” — Jesse L. Greenstein in Remembering Zwicky. When it comes to solving problems, our brains often jump to familiar answers. For example, if your phone is low on battery, charge it. If it’s cold outside, turn the heater on. While these familiar solutions are good in certain situations, they may not be enough to navigate more complex areas of our lives. Sometimes, the problem does not lie in coming up with ideas, but stopping too early when you only have a few solutions. Only when all the possible solutions are exhausted can we find the best answers. Thomas Edison had 1093 patents, while Mozart had 600 musical compositions. However, we only remember a few, and the groundbreaking ones were only possible thanks to the number of ideas they generated. Prolific creatives such as Ed Sheeran and John Mayer also attributed their success to coming up with many ideas before selecting the best ones. Zwicky’s work also involved solving complex and challenging problems. These are not problems you can answer with conventional answers. Instead of squeezing his brain to develop unique solutions, Zwicky used the morphological box to generate many ideas. Thanks to this approach, he could come up with a set of diverse answers and select the best possible solution. And the good news is: you can use his method as well. How to create your own Zwicky box A Zwicky box is powerful but is not hard to build. Break your problem into categories and add values to each category. Then, create unique combinations by combining the values from each category. Let’s say you want to come up with a new app. You can follow the steps along here by downloading our Zwicky box template. Step 1: Figure out your categories. The first step is to define our categories. Here is what your Zwicky box might look like at the start: Finding your categories is simple: take an example of a similar existing solution, list each part, and ask if you can turn it into a category. For instance, let us take Roam Research, and break it down into its components: Note-taking app – Product Knowledge workers – Demographic Subscription model – Revenue model Bi-directional linking – Unique feature Networked thought – Brand message Then, add each category into its column. You should have something like this: Step 2: Add the values Next, brainstorm values for each category. If you have a problem coming up with values, try looking for inspiration from existing solutions, searching online, or brainstorming with your team. As long as it is workable and realistic, add it into the Zwicky box. Step 3: Create unique combinations Next, combine the values to create a brand new idea. Randomly pick one of the values from each category and link the values together. For example: Combination 1: To-do list app, for students, one-time payment, language processing, and organize it all Combination 2: Read-it later app, for writers, subscription model, team workspace, fastest app Combination 3: CRM, for students, subscription, team workspace, think better Continue to create these combinations even if you don’t find anything valuable at first. The power of a Zwicky box comes from the many ideas it creates. Suppose you have a Zwicky box with five categories. Each category contains five values, leading up to 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 x 5 = 3125 unique combinations. With this many options, you are bound to generate at least one or two high quality, innovative ideas. Using the Zwicky box in your everyday life The process may sound quite theoretical, but the Zwicky box has many practical applications. Here are four ideas on using a Zwicky box in your everyday life: Creativity. From story planning to content creation, creatives can utilise the Zwicky box to generate original ideas. Innovation. You can use a Zwicky box for market innovation, business model creation, product development, and prototyping. Decision making. A Zwicky box can help you with strategizing, financial modelling, and daily decision making. Brainstorming in a team. It can be helpful to brainstorm ideas with your team with a Zwicky box where everyone can contribute to creating and filling the Zwicky box. The Zwicky box is a simple tool to improve your creativity and problem-solving. Simply break down your problems into their components, add values and link them together to create new ideas. It’s easy to set up and can be used for many situations, from creating your next business model or article. Get started by downloading our free Zwicky box template. The post The Zwicky box: a powerful method for problem solving and creativity appeared first on Ness Labs.

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