In a seeming counter-intuitive twist of business logic, Morieux talks about how the business ‘trinity’ (clarity, measurements and accountability) should be replaced by fuzziness and a focus on the ‘how’, not the ‘what’. He suggests that the trinity just provides a space to know whom to blame when things fail where fuzziness encourages cooperation which is key to reducing resources and improves idea generation.
Yves Morieux: How too many rules at work keep you from getting things done
In her very short presentation, Berti uses very catchy Lego graphics to explain some of the surprising non-violent activities “terrorist” organizations participate in in order to maintain power (for example, setup profitable companies to generate income).
Benedetta Berti: The surprising way groups like ISIS stay in power
I first read McCandless’s, Information is Beautiful, in college. I loved that it was a book full of knowledge but with comparatively few words. In his TED talk, McCandless states that well made graphics facilitate “information compression” and explains how this compression can help us better understand the world. Additionally, he shows some compelling reasons we should be more worried about ratios and not absolute numbers.
In an unusual position, Asma argues that we are not benefited by our strong pursuit of “fairness” (which is, in part at least, evidenced by the lack of clear definition of what is universally “fair”). Instead, he discusses the well know recognition of “tribes” (person who share similar attributes) in social science and suggests that embracing our tribal nature, and thus our natural inclination to favoritism, we can then leverage that connectedness in a way that “fairness” can only dream of. For example, consider that a community that embraces favoritism will help its struggling community members because they are part of the same “tribe” even if it might not be “fair” to do so.
Note: “Tribe” is a social science term used to describe bonds, usually tight-knit bonds formed through common experience or attributes. Some examples of “tribes” include person who grew up together (often considered family regardless of relation or lack thereof), a small group of coworkers and old neighbors.
Interesting tidbit: I have struggled writing an essay for years on the topic of fairness. After reading this book, I have finally retired those drafts. Asma made the argument much better than I.
Williams uses humorous and sobering examples from her life to argue why we, individually, should gather data about our bodies so we can make better decisions about our health with our doctors.