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The Dismal Art: Economic forecasting has become much more sophisticated in the decades since its invention. So why are we still so bad at it?

The Dismal Art: Economic forecasting has become much more sophisticated in the decades since its invention. So why are we still so bad at it?
James Surowiecki
Fortune Tellers: The Story of America’s First Economic Forecasters By Walter A. Friedman • Princeton University Press • 2013 • 268 pages • $29.95
We live in an age that’s drowning in economic forecasts. Banks, investment firms, government agencies: On a near-daily basis, these institutions are making public predictions about everything from the unemployment rate to GDP growth to where stock prices are headed this year. Big companies, meanwhile, employ sizable planning departments that are supposed to help them peer into the future. And the advent of what’s often called Big Data is only adding to the forecast boom, with the field of “predictive analytics” promising that it can reveal what we’ll click on and what we’ll buy. Read more of this post

The man who destroyed America’s ego: How a rebel psychologist challenged one of the 20th century’s biggest-and most dangerous-ideas

The man who destroyed America’s ego
How a rebel psychologist challenged one of the 20th century’s biggest—and most dangerous—ideas
Will Storr in Matter
FOR MUCH OF HUMAN HISTORY, our beliefs have been based on the assumption that people are fundamentally bad. Strip away a person’s smile and you’ll find a grotesque, writhing animal-thing. Human instincts have to be controlled, and religions have often been guides for containing the demons. Sigmund Freud held a similar view: Psychotherapy was his method of making the unconscious conscious, helping people restrain their bestial desires and accord with the moral laws of civilization.
In the middle of the 20th century, an alternative school of thought appeared. It was popularized by Carl Rogers, an influential psychotherapist at the University of Chicago, and it reversed the presumption of original sin. Rogers argued that people are innately decent. Children, he believed, should be raised in an environment of “unconditional positive regard”. They should be liberated from the inhibitions and restraints that prevented them from attaining their full potential. Read more of this post

World’s Best CEOs: Members of our exclusive club share a high regard for innovation, growth, and shareholder return. Who’s in and who’s out on our 10th annual list

SATURDAY, MARCH 22, 2014
World’s Best CEOs
By ANDREW BARY | MORE ARTICLES BY AUTHOR
Members of our exclusive club share a high regard for innovation, growth, and shareholder return. Who’s in and who’s out on our 10th annual list. Read more of this post

TED turns 30 with new chapter of ‘ideas worth spreading’

TED turns 30 with new chapter of ‘ideas worth spreading’
Saturday, 22 March, 2014, 4:25pm
Agence France-Presse in Vancouver
TED turns 30 years old with a mind-sizzling mix of intrigue, wonder and passion in the renowned gathering’s new home in Canada.
A conference born in California in 1984 that grew into a global forum for heady “ideas worth spreading” ended Friday after gazing thoughtfully at the past and looking optimistically ahead. Read more of this post

Breaking the third-generation curse in the family businesses; professionalisation can be easily executed but it can dilute family capital

Breaking the third-generation curse in the family businesses
The Nation
March 22, 2014 1:00 am
Wanchalerm: In the third generation, professionalisation can be easily executed but it can dilute family capital. Family businesses must place emphasis on managing family capital to ensure that the business becomes self-sustaining across generations. Read more of this post

The co-innovation sweet spot; Companies pursuing a strategy of co-innovation can mess up in two ways: changing too little or changing too much

The co-innovation sweet spot
Howard Yu and Jean-Louis Barsoux, The Jakarta Post | Business | Sat, March 22 2014, 12:58 PM
Companies pursuing a strategy of co-innovation can mess up in two ways: changing too little or changing too much
Shifting industry boundaries mean that change is happening faster and coming at us from all directions. It is becoming harder to keep up by innovating alone. Read more of this post

Looking for Ways to Keep Money From Dividing a Family

Looking for Ways to Keep Money From Dividing a Family
MARCH 21, 2014
Business leaders talk after a symposium called “Successful Multigenerational Families” in New York. The event drew dozens of wealthy people focused on handling their money in a way that would not divide their families. Read more of this post

Don’t Worry, Get Botox; If you can’t frown, it may be harder to be depressed

Don’t Worry, Get Botox
MARCH 21, 2014

Read more of this post

What The Greatest Self-Help Books Of The Last Decades Can Teach You In 7 Minutes

Kathy Caprino, Contributor
3/21/2014 @ 11:22AM |9,187 views
What The Greatest Self-Help Books Of The Last Decades Can Teach You In 7 Minutes
As a writer, I’m fortunate to connect with authors and experts all over the globe who have vitally important messages to share. While each of these experts sees the world in his or her own very unique way, and shares a special filter or perspective on life, progress and success, when you peel the onion on these messages, there are many recurring themes and threads. Read more of this post

How To Get More Done: Time Management For The Rest Of Us

Paul B. Brown, Contributor
3/22/2014 @ 5:29AM |419 views
How To Get More Done: Time Management For The Rest Of Us
It’s inevitable.
You work starts to pile up, your “to do” list gets longer, and you reach the point where you are putting in all the hours you possibly can. As a result, you start groping around for any and all ideas that could ease your workload. Read more of this post

Nudge Theory: Behavioural economics is a hot idea for policy makers in the UK and US. But what can it really achieve?

March 21, 2014 1:07 pm
Behavioural economics and public policy
By Tim Harford
The past decade has been a triumph for behavioural economics, the fashionable cross-breed of psychology and economics. First there was the award in 2002 of the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics to a psychologist, Daniel Kahneman – the man who did as much as anything to create the field of behavioural economics. Bestselling books were launched, most notably by Kahneman himself (Thinking, Fast and Slow , 2011) and by his friend Richard Thaler, co-author of Nudge (2008). Behavioural economics seems far sexier than the ordinary sort, too: when last year’s Nobel was shared three ways, it was the behavioural economist Robert Shiller who grabbed all the headlines. Read more of this post

Nudge Theory: Behavioural economics is a hot idea for policy makers in the UK and US. But what can it really achieve?

March 21, 2014 1:07 pm
Behavioural economics and public policy
By Tim Harford
The past decade has been a triumph for behavioural economics, the fashionable cross-breed of psychology and economics. First there was the award in 2002 of the Nobel Memorial Prize in economics to a psychologist, Daniel Kahneman – the man who did as much as anything to create the field of behavioural economics. Bestselling books were launched, most notably by Kahneman himself (Thinking, Fast and Slow , 2011) and by his friend Richard Thaler, co-author of Nudge (2008). Behavioural economics seems far sexier than the ordinary sort, too: when last year’s Nobel was shared three ways, it was the behavioural economist Robert Shiller who grabbed all the headlines. Read more of this post

Social Media: Not the First to Own Kids’ Minds; Alison Gopnik on a much older technology that Socrates complained about

The Kid Who Wouldn’t Let Go Of ‘The Device’
March 21, 2014 7:03 p.m. ET
How does technology reshape our children’s minds and brains? Here is a disturbing story from the near future.
They gave her The Device when she was only 2. It worked through a powerful and sophisticated optic nerve brain-mind interface, injecting its content into her cortex. By the time she was 5, she had been utterly swept away into the alternate universe that The Device created. Read more of this post

Using a Foreign Tongue Can Clear Your Mind; Considering and discussing an emotionally freighted problem in a foreign tongue may help you make a more rational choice, research shows

Foreign Tongue, Clearer Mind
DANIEL AKST
March 21, 2014 7:27 p.m. ET

Facing an emotionally freighted decision? If you speak a second language, you’re in luck. Considering and discussing the problem in a foreign tongue may help you decide more rationally.
In a new paper, scientists in Barcelona and Jerusalem report on a series of experiments in which bilingual volunteers made more rational decisions when using their second language. Participants in each experiment were split into two groups: One was given problems in their native language, and the other was presented with the same problems in their second language. Read more of this post