Why ‘Overlearning’ Is The Key To Ridiculous Success

Why ‘Overlearning’ Is The Key To Ridiculous Success

ANNIE MURPHY PAUL, THE BRILLIANT BLOG AUG. 19, 2013, 5:10 PM 4,336 2

“Why do I have to keep practicing? I know it already!”

That’s the familiar wail of a child seated at the piano or in front of the multiplication table (or, for that matter, of an adult taking a tennis lesson). Cognitive science has a persuasive retort: We don’t just need to learn a task in order to perform it well; we need to overlearn it. Decades of research have shown that superior performance requires practicing beyond the point of mastery. The perfect execution of a piano sonata or a tennis serve doesn’t mark the end of practice; it signals that the crucial part of the session is just getting underway. Read more of this post

Su Yongle, one of the creators and an angel investor in one of China’s most popular animated series, Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, has lost interest in the Pleasant Goat brand and is now looking to invest in the field of online education

Pleasant Goat creator to move on to pastures new

Staff Reporter

2013-08-21

Su Yongle, one of the creators and an angel investor in one of China’s most popular animated series, Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf, has lost interest in the Pleasant Goat brand and is now looking to invest in the field of online education, selling part of his holdings for an estimated HK$17 million (US$2.2 million), reports the Chinese-language Chinese Entrepreneur magazine. An angel investor is an individual who provides capital for a business startup, usually in exchange for convertible debt or ownership equity. Su initially invested 3 million yuan (US$490,000) in making animated films before he created CPE Culture Communication Co. When Wong Wai Ming, former chief director of the series, began to establish the cartoon, Su decided to mass produce the series with the aim of seeing Pleasant Goat on TV screens throughout the country. In July 2005, Pleasant Goat made its debut in Hangzhou and was broadcast on the Zhejiang TV station before finally being broadcast nationwide. Guided by Su and Wong, more than 500 episodes of Pleasant Goat were produced by 2008. Read more of this post

Sometimes the best that a company can hope for is death; Failed businesses are seen as victims of errors rather than as having simply run their course

August 20, 2013 5:52 pm

Sometimes the best that a company can hope for is death

By John Kay

Failed businesses are seen as victims of errors rather than as having simply run their course

The Financial Times has carried an unusual number of obituaries and stories of terminal illness this summer. There was the bankruptcy of Detroit and the slide into administration of once-ubiquitous companies, such as Jessops, the high-street camera retailer. Then there was last week’s announcement of the continuing troubles of BlackBerry, which made the defining business product of the first decade of the 21st century. Humans have always found it hard to cope with the idea that every individual has a lifespan even as life itself goes on. The idea of a natural life cycle for a business, or industrial centre, is even more difficult to accept. So we ask: what can be done to revive Detroit? Can BlackBerry find a new role? Read more of this post

Bugaboo: the pull of a cool pushchair

August 20, 2013 5:09 pm

Bugaboo: the pull of a cool pushchair

By Emma Jacobs

Bugaboo founder Max Barenbrug, left, and chief executive Nico Moolenaar. Photographer: Paul O’Driscoll. Man with a pram plan: Max Barenbrug wants substance not hype to be the reason a Bugaboo is bought by parents

O n Fridays, Max Barenbrug, co-founder of Bugaboo, the maker of expensive statement strollers and prams used by Elton John, Madonna and reportedly the Duchess of Cambridge, is found at home. This time is earmarked for his two children but as they are aged 10 and 11, for the most part they are at school and he is on his own. “At home I am totally Max, which is sitting silently and thinking. I like to be alone. When I am with the children I ask the girls, ‘do your thing, don’t bother me’.” The childcare strategy allows him freedom to ponder. “I don’t like to work extremely hard. I have never worked extremely hard.” Which is a rare statement from an entrepreneur. His philosophy is that products are “1 per cent inspiration and 99 per cent transpiration. Transpiration can be outsourced, inspiration is where you make a difference and I focus on that. An idea should be in the head as long as possible.” Read more of this post

How French Brand Vilebrequin Cornered The Market For $200 Swim Trunks

How French Brand Vilebrequin Cornered The Market For $200 Swim Trunks

ROBIN MELLERY-PLATT, THE BUSINESS OF FASHION AUG. 20, 2013, 7:04 PM 1,394

SAINT-TROPEZ, France — Winding down the Corniche, one of Europe’s most breath-taking roads, and descending into Saint-Tropez from the direction of Monte Carlo, the super-yachts cruising the bay below look like nothing more than polished toys, discarded in a child’s paddling pool. Henri Matisse, the most renowned Tropezian artiste en résidence, would have enjoyed the view at Le Byblos’ palette-shaped pool. Under the hotel’s terracotta and sand façades, swimsuits printed with colourful turtles, palm trees and maritime themes are everywhere. Almost every male guest is part of the riot. Read more of this post

Thiel Fellow Launches A Topical Energy Spray For Absorbing Caffeine Through Your Skin

Founders Who Can’t Handle A Full Cup Of Coffee Want Everyone To Start Spraying On Caffeine Instead

ALYSON SHONTELL AUG. 20, 2013, 6:12 PM 1,479 2

In case you don’t like drinking, eating or inhaling caffeine, two founders going through investor Peter Thiel’s fellow program are creating another way to energize you. Ben Yu and Devon Soni have launched a campaign on crowdfunding platform Indiegogo for a product called Sprayable Energy. It’s an unscented, colorless formula that can be sprayed on skin, kind of like sunless tanner. It contains water, a derivative of the amino acid tyrosine, and caffeine. Four sprays equal one cup of coffee, the founders say, and each little bottle has up to 160 squirts.  The founders say they’ve “struggled with caffeine sensitivity” and the product they’re perfecting will give energy without the jitters. They also say Sprayable Energy users won’t experience a caffeine crash later in the day. Yu and Soni are seeking a modest amount, $15,000, to bring their idea to life. They’ve already raised more than $11,000 to tackle what they say is a $45 billion market. It’s worth noting that the a number of innovative ways to shoot caffeine into your system have been blocked. Perky Jerky was forced to stop putting caffeine in beef jerky, and the FDA went after inhalable solutions too.

Read more of this post

The importance of writing in Amazon’s success is a clue about why so many employers find that new college graduates aren’t well prepared to be contributors in their workplaces

Jeff Bezos’ PowerPoint prohibition

Jacqueline Pfeffer Merrill Posted on 9 Aug 2013, 1:47 AM 5,629 views PD Forum

You’ve been there too-—the really, truly awful PowerPoint presentation that makes you want to run screaming from the room. More than a decade ago, it was estimated that 30 million PowerPoint presentations were given each day—the number must be much higher today. Just think of how many millions of hours are spent every day sitting through truly terrible PowerPoint presentations. So it’s noteworthy that Amazon founder—and new Washington Post owner­­—Jeff Bezos’ proscribes PowerPoint presentations at Amazon. Bezos instead requires that employees compose 6-page narrative memos, and he starts meetings with quiet reading periods—“study halls”—in which everyone reads the memo from beginning to end. Read more of this post

Here’s Some Wonderful Writing From Elon Musk That Everyone In Business Should Emulate

Here’s Some Wonderful Writing From Elon Musk That Everyone In Business Should Emulate

JOE WEISENTHAL AUG. 20, 2013, 9:10 AM 13,368 18

There’s no shortage of reasons to call Elon Musk a badass. He’s super-successful. He has a company that does private rocket launches that look like something approaching magic. He’s made the best car of all time, according to Consumer Reports. And the latest news is that he’s made the safest car of all time, as well. Here’s another thing about him that goes overlooked: He’s a tremendous communicator, on par or possibly better than Steve Jobs. Because while Steve Jobs was talking about the magic of gadgets, Musk is actually communicating about engineering concepts, which fly above most people’s heads. Read this from Tesla’s announcement today about its safety rating. It’s a wonderful paragraph:

The Model S has the advantage in the front of not having a large gasoline engine block, thus creating a much longer crumple zone to absorb a high speed impact. This is fundamentally a force over distance problem – the longer the crumple zone, the more time there is to slow down occupants at g loads that do not cause injuries. Just like jumping into a pool of water from a tall height, it is better to have the pool be deep and not contain rocks. The Model S motor is only about a foot in diameter and is mounted close to the rear axle, and the front section that would normally contain a gasoline engine is used for a second trunk.

After you read that, you instantly grasp how Tesla’s small engine block makes it safer. Read more of this post

New CEO Of Bloomberg Media Sent Employees A Memo Explaining His Philosophy On Journalism

New CEO Of Bloomberg Media Sent Employees A Memo Explaining His Philosophy On Journalism — Here It Is

LINETTE LOPEZ AUG. 19, 2013, 3:01 PM 3,106 3

There hasn’t been a peep from the new CEO of Bloomberg Media Group, Justin Smith, since his hire was announced. Friday, however, he sent Bloomberg’s media team a quick memo about his philosophy on journalism — we’ve copied it below. The most important thing to note here is that Smith makes it clear that he is a business man. “Helping create quality content and figuring out how to commercialize it has been my life’s passion,” he wrote. “Though I came out of print media, I’ve specialized in transitioning media brands onto digital and live event platforms.” Reading that, you can’t help but think of Jeff Bezos, a business man, purchasing the Washington Post from the family of journalists that held it for decades. It serves as a reminder that good journalism is alive — the problem is that it’s time to rethink how it’s sold to the people that want to consume it. Smith is promising that he knows how to do that, writing that he wants Bloomberg to choose to “live on the new, exciting frontier of media.” Note the word “choice.” Smith divides the industry into two camps — publications that are letting the industry’s changes steam roll the out of existence, and publications that accept the changes and embrace them. Check out Smith’s full memo below (emphasis ours): Read more of this post

A Stunning Chart That Shows How Nepotism Really Works

A Stunning Chart That Shows How Nepotism Really Works

JOE WEISENTHAL AUG. 19, 2013, 2:33 PM 11,010 10

Here’s one way the rich hold onto their wealth: By hiring their spawn. This way, the wealth and the accumulated power stay in the family, rather than dissipate outwords. Toby Nangle tweeted out this great chart from economist Miles Corak, who has done a lot of work on wealth mobility. It shows the likelihood that a son at some point in their life works for the same firm that their father once worked for across various income levels. The conclusion couldn’t be more clear: The richer the father is, the more likely it is that their son will work at a firm they worked for at some point in their life. As you get to the very elite, the % of sons sharing an employer with their father just soars. The numbers in the survey are from Canada or Denmark, but the similarity across countries indicates that this is a pattern not confirmed to just those two.

Taking the Xerox business model out of its box

Taking the Xerox business model out of its box

Dan Ovsey | 13/08/19 | Last Updated: 13/08/16 7:45 PM ET

Darren Calabrese/National PostXerox CEO Ursula Burns says the inventor of the photocopier is divesting itself of traditional DocuTech processes and investing much more heavily in high-end printing and other services that cater to businesses in an era of customized, on-demand and just-in-time needs. When Ursula Burns began her career at Xerox in 1981 as part of the product development team, the company was known almost exclusively for its flagship photocopiers. Since then, she has seen the advent of the Internet, digital communication, on-demand service models and just-in-time business processes. Now the company’s CEO — and the first African-American woman to lead a Fortune 500 company — Ms. Burns has the unenviable task of transforming and re-branding Xerox into a services-based tech company that must partially distance itself from what has made its brand famous, in order to remain relevant in the future. During a recent trip to Toronto, she spoke with FP’s Dan Ovsey about the rationale and genesis behind Xerox’s service push, where it’s making strategic investments and how it will identify the people and processes to make the shift work. Following is an edited transcript of their conversation. Read more of this post

Is Economics More Like History Than Physics?

Is Economics More Like History Than Physics?

By Jag Bhalla | August 16, 2013 |  12

Is economics like physics, or more like history? Steven Pinker says, “No sane thinker would try to explain World War I in the language of physics.” Yet some economists aim close to such craziness.

Pinker says the ”mindset of science” eliminates errors by “open debate, peer review, and double-blind methods,” and especially, experimentation. But experiments require repetition and control over all relevant variables. We can experiment on individual behavior, but not with history or macroeconomics. Read more of this post

The Beauty of Limits

August 19, 2013

The Beauty of Limits

By CARL RICHARDS

Haow often do we hear ourselves saying we want more? More freedom, more money, more time. More seems as if it would always be great, until we get it. Then we’re faced with a new set of problems that comes with having more. My work is location-independent. My wife and I could live anywhere that our budget will allow, and that ends up being a lot of places. Normally having more options is what we want, but this has actually led to a consistent problem that we spend a lot of time discussing. Read more of this post

Talking About Your Goals Makes You Less Likely To Achieve Them; the personal satisfaction of achievement is infinitely sweeter than public acclaim

Say What? Talking About Your Goals Makes You Less Likely To Achieve Them

JEFF HADEN, LINKEDIN AUG. 20, 2013, 10:53 AM 1,422 1

We all have a huge personal goal we want to accomplish: A big, challenging, amazing goal. We think about it, dream about it, obsess about it… but we never accomplish it. That could be because we also talked about it, because according to some studies, people who talk about their intentions are less likely to follow through on those intentions. Say you want to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail, a grueling five- to seven-month trek from Georgia to Maine. (Having completed about 2% of it, I’m not so well on my section-hiking way, much less thru-hiking.) You’re having dinner with friends and you tell them all about it. “Oh, wow!” one exclaims. “That sounds amazing. But won’t it be super hard?” Read more of this post

London Is A Better Place To Visit Than Paris [INFOGRAPHIC]

London Is A Better Place To Visit Than Paris [INFOGRAPHIC]

MELISSA STANGER AUG. 20, 2013, 3:01 PM 1,902 6

London is known for its beautiful and historic architecture. Paris is famous for its exquisite cuisine. Each city is unique in different ways, but when put head to head, which comes out on top? It’s a close call, but London clearly has the advantage, according to a new infographic by Ally Biring of travel booking site HouseTrip.com. Biring compared different aspects of each city, including restaurants, cuisine, landmarks, architecture, and local sights, and found that London topped Paris in most of these categories. London has more museums, more landmarks and attractions, and more UNESCO sites, like the Tower of London and Westminster Abbey, than Paris. It also has more restaurants, lots of free parks and museums, and it’s cheaper for tourists to get around. However, Paris made a compelling case for itself. It’s the home of Disneyland Paris and the iconic Eiffel Tower. A city well-known for its food, Paris may not have as many restaurants as London, but it has more Michelin-starred restaurants and many world-class culinary schools. Take a look at HouseTrip’s infographic to see how the two cities measure up in each category.

How ‘Power Poses’ Can Help Your Career; Posture actually affects a person’s hormones and behavior, new research shows

August 20, 2013, 6:57 p.m. ET

How ‘Power Poses’ Can Help Your Career

Posture actually affects a person’s hormones and behavior, new research shows

SUE SHELLENBARGER

New research shows posture has a bigger impact than anyone believed: It actually changes a person’s hormones and behavior, and even has an impact on how you are perceived in the workplace. WSJ’s Sue Shellenbarger and marketing executive Kathy Keim discuss. Photo: Jarrard Cole/The Wall Street Journal.

Can how you stand or sit affect your success? New research shows posture has a bigger impact on body and mind than previously believed. Striking a powerful, expansive pose actually changes a person’s hormones and behavior, just as if he or she had real power. Merely practicing a “power pose” for a few minutes in private—such as standing tall and leaning slightly forward with hands at one’s side, or leaning forward over a desk with hands planted firmly on its surface—led to higher levels of testosterone and lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol in study participants. These physiological changes are linked to better performance and more confident, assertive behavior, recent studies show. Read more of this post

Command of written Chinese declines in digital era; Many Chinese resort to pinyin, or romanised Putonghua, when using a keyboard but their grasp of the written language is weakening as a result

Command of written Chinese declines in digital era

Tuesday, 20 August, 2013, 12:00am

Mandy Zuo mandy.zuo@scmp.com

Many Chinese resort to pinyin, or romanised Putonghua, when using a keyboard but their grasp of the written language is weakening as a result

A popular spelling competition run on state broadcaster CCTV has reinforced fears Chinese are losing their grasp of their own written language – thanks, it appears, to computer and mobile device keyboards. Seventy per cent of adults in the audience of Chinese Characters Dictation Competition have been unable to write, by hand, the characters for the word “toad” correctly . Read more of this post

Xinhua reveals China’s ‘Area 51’ in Inner Mongolia

Xinhua reveals China’s ‘Area 51’ in Inner Mongolia

Staff Reporter

2013-08-21

A satellite image of the secret Badan Jilin Desert range. (Internet photo)

After the Central Intelligence Agency acknowledged the existence of Area 51 as a testing site for U-2 spy planes, a secret Chinese missile range in the Badan Jilin Desert in Inner Mongolia has become the world’s next great site of unexplained mystery, according to Duowei News, a media outlet operated by overseas Chinese. Photo of this secret military site were first revealed by the official news agency Xinhua on Aug. 19 in a report which said the site is never featured on any official maps approved by the government and its purpose had never previously been mentioned in any media report. This secret military facility was established in 2003 for the People’s Liberation Army to test its ballistic missiles and fighters, Xinhua said. Photos published by Xinhua showed the words “those who steal secrets will be caught and executed” outside the entrance of the facility. The history of the base goes back to 1958, when it was originally designed as two shooting ranges, one for ballistic missiles and the other for aircraft. After the integration of the sites in 2003, China’s first indigenous fourth-generation fighter completed its last air-to-air missile tests over the Badan Jilin Desert on Dec. 25 of that year. Various Chinese aircraft and aviation equipment have been tested at the site before entering production. Air combat exercises similar to the Red Flag exercise held at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada and Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska can also be conducted at the Badan Jilin range, according to Xinhua.