Bamboo Innovator

The Real Reason You Learn A Lesson Better When You Teach It: Nachas, pride and satisfaction that is derived from someone else’s accomplishment

The Real Reason You Learn A Lesson Better When You Teach It

ANNIE MURPHY PAUL, THE BRILLIANT BLOG JUL. 6, 2013, 8:11 AM 1,508 

Learning, and thinking, are deeply social activities. 

This is not the traditional view (Rodin’s iconic sculpture, “The Thinker,” is conspicuously alone in his chin-on-fist musings), but it’s the view that is emerging out of several decades of social science research. Our minds often work best in interaction with other people’s minds, and there are particular kinds of relationships that are especially good at evoking our intelligence. One is the master-apprentice relationship, which I wrote about here. Another, of course, is the teacher-student relationship—but today I want to talk about the benefits of this relationship for the teacher. For thousands of years, people have known that the best way to understand a concept is to explain it to someone else. “While we teach, we learn,” said the Roman philosopher Seneca. Now scientists are bringing this ancient wisdom up to date, documenting exactly why teaching is such a fruitful way to learn — and designing innovative ways for young people to engage in instruction. Read more of this post

Do Bigger Desks Make People Dishonest? Putting people in that big corner office might not be a business strategy that helps the rest of us

Do Bigger Desks Make People Dishonest?

Putting people in that big corner office might not be a business strategy that helps the rest of us.

We know that people in large corner offices sometimes do bad things. Could the size of the space actually be one cause?

If you’re skeptical about a link between office size and dishonest behavior (and we were), take a look at a new study from Columbia, MIT, Northwestern, Harvard and Berkeley. Across four experiments, it finds that certain expansive environments make people feel more powerful, and that this sense of power can lead to dishonesty. The researchers aren’t saying all people who get big offices go out and rob banks. But they do show environment is relevant, and that might be worth thinking about (for instance, if you’re moving to a new space).  Read more of this post

Back to the drawing-board: Design companies are applying their skills to the voluntary and public sectors

Back to the drawing-board: Design companies are applying their skills to the voluntary and public sectors

Jul 6th 2013 |From the print edition

THE office looks like a cross between a Starbucks and a youth club. Bicycles are piled high in racks; there is a ping-pong table in a corner. Young people sit at long pine benches, sipping coffee and poring over laptops, the males looking as if they are taking part in a beard-growing competition. But do not be deceived by the laid-back atmosphere: this is the London branch of one of the world’s most successful design consultancies, IDEO. When it started up in Silicon Valley in 1991 one of its founders, David Kelley, said he did not want to employ more people than could fit in a school bus. Today IDEO has more than 600 employees and offices in eight countries. Read more of this post

Lincoln Mastered Wisdom of Unsent Letter After Gettysburg

Lincoln Mastered Wisdom of Unsent Letter After Gettysburg

Abraham Lincoln, remembered 150 years after a “decisive” battle of the U.S. Civil War, could have excelled in modern-day Washington politics, one of the pre-eminent scholars on the American president says.

“He would be tech savvy, he would lose the beard, he would have some cosmetic surgery, he would make an asset of his height,” historian Harold Holzer said in an interview for Bloomberg Television’s “Political Capital with Al Hunt” airing this weekend. “He was so smart about working with the press, getting the press to work in his behalf, giving out exclusives, and he would have mastered any medium.”

As one measure of Lincoln’s political prowess, Holzer recited an often-told tale of Lincoln thinking twice before dispatching a letter upbraiding his general who defeated the enemy at the Battle of Gettysburg, a turning point for the Northern victory in the Civil War. It was a precursor to the dilemma of hitting the send button on a regrettable email. Read more of this post

A third of all French restaurants serve dishes prepared largely or entirely elsewhere; Restaurateurs may be forced to draw up new, more honest menus

French restaurateurs may be forced to draw up new, more honest menus

Jul 6th 2013 | PARIS |From the print edition

GIVEN the state of France’s economy, its politicians ought to have bigger worries. But one of the hottest topics in parliament these days is how to force restaurants to reveal whether they make their boeuf bourguignon on the premises or rip open packets and warm up the contents.

On June 27th the lower house approved an amendment to a consumer-rights bill that will force restaurants to label the dishes they prepare from fresh ingredients in their own kitchens as “fait maison”, or “home-made”. This is tougher than the optional label the government proposed, but less stringent than the obligatory description of every dish on every menu as either home-made or based on industrial products, which some want. If the reform goes through, in 2014 the menus of every establishment, from little brasseries in the Dordogne to multi-starred restaurants in Paris, could be sporting truth-in-eating symbols instead of appetising but misleading tags such asfaçon grandmère—“just as grandma used to make it”. Read more of this post

On the 16th anniversary of the devaluation of the baht (July 2, 1997), which preceded the Asian financial crisis, former steel tycoon Sawad Horrungruang talks about the lessons learned

16TH CRISIS ANNIVERSARY

Asian financial crisis and the lessons learned

Nophakhun Limsamarnphun
The Nation July 6, 2013 1:00 am

Sawad: In hindsight, the biggest lesson was that if you borrowed in foreign currency, there would be multiple risk factors.

Ex-steel tycoon recalls downfall on 16th anniversary of baht devaluation

On the 16th anniversary of the devaluation of the baht (July 2, 1997), which preceded the Asian financial crisis, former steel tycoon Sawad Horrungruang said, “Back then, companies in my area of business [NTS, NSM and affiliated firms] owed as much as US$2.7 billion to foreign and Thai creditors. “The loans were denominated in foreign currencies, so the combined debt doubled overnight as soon as the baht was devalued, and then plunged from Bt25 to the dollar to more than Bt50 [debt jumped from between Bt140 billion and Bt150 billion]. “Back then, interest rates also jumped to more than 10 per cent and if you defaulted, the rate would shoot up to nearly 30 per cent. The massive foreign-exchange losses and high cost of funds meant that it was impossible for any decent business to survive. “In hindsight, the biggest lesson was that if you borrowed in foreign currency, there would be multiple risk factors. In this era of globalisation, whatever happens in the US, Europe or elsewhere is going to effect businesses in Thailand. Read more of this post