Monday, January 25, 2016

Twitter Board Diversity





Zuck, Free Basics, India
FourSquare: What Has Become Of You
















How Diversity Makes Us Smarter

Being around people who are different from us makes us more creative, more diligent and harder-working
Decades of research by organizational scientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists and demographers show that socially diverse groups (that is, those with a diversity of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation) are more innovative than homogeneous groups. ...... It seems obvious that a group of people with diverse individual expertise would be better than a homogeneous group at solving complex, nonroutine problems. It is less obvious that social diversity should work in the same way—yet the science shows that it does. ...... This is not only because people with different backgrounds bring new information. Simply interacting with individuals who are different forces group members to prepare better, to anticipate alternative viewpoints and to expect that reaching consensus will take effort............. The first thing to acknowledge about diversity is that it can be difficult. ....... you would not think of building a new car without engineers, designers and quality-control experts—but what about social diversity? What good comes from diversity of race, ethnicity, gender and sexual orientation? Research has shown that social diversity in a group can cause discomfort, rougher interactions, a lack of trust, greater perceived interpersonal conflict, lower communication, less cohesion, more concern about disrespect, and other problems. So what is the upside? ........ The fact is that if you want to build teams or organizations capable of innovating, you need diversity. ..... Diversity can improve the bottom line of companies and lead to unfettered discoveries and breakthrough innovations. Even simply being exposed to diversity can change the way you think. This is not just wishful thinking: it is the conclusion I draw from decades of research from organizational scientists, psychologists, sociologists, economists and demographers. ....... People who are different from one another in race, gender and other dimensions bring unique information and experiences to bear on the task at hand. A male and a female engineer might have perspectives as different from one another as an engineer and a physicist—and that is a good thing. ....... on average, “female representation in top management leads to an increase of $42 million in firm value.” They also measured the firms' “innovation intensity” through the ratio of research and development expenses to assets. They found that companies that prioritized innovation saw greater financial gains when women were part of the top leadership ranks. ........

Racial diversity can deliver the same kinds of benefits.

...... For innovation-focused banks, increases in racial diversity were clearly related to enhanced financial performance. ...... companies with one or more women on the board delivered higher average returns on equity, lower gearing (that is, net debt to equity) and better average growth.
......... Large data-set studies have an obvious limitation: they only show that diversity is correlated with better performance, not that it causes better performance. Research on racial diversity in small groups, however, makes it possible to draw some causal conclusions. Again, the findings are clear: for groups that value innovation and new ideas, diversity helps. ........ The groups with racial diversity significantly outperformed the groups with no racial diversity. Being with similar others leads us to think we all hold the same information and share the same perspective. This perspective, which stopped the all-white groups from effectively processing the information, is what hinders creativity and innovation. ....... When a black person presented a dissenting perspective to a group of whites, the perspective was perceived as more novel and led to broader thinking and consideration of alternatives than when a white person introduced that same dissenting perspective. The lesson: when we hear dissent from someone who is different from us, it provokes more thought than when it comes from someone who looks like us. ......... Democrats who were told that a fellow Democrat disagreed with them prepared less well for the discussion than Democrats who were told that a Republican disagreed with them. Republicans showed the same pattern. When disagreement comes from a socially different person, we are prompted to work harder. Diversity jolts us into cognitive action in ways that homogeneity simply does not. ......... papers written by diverse groups receive more citations and have higher impact factors than papers written by people from the same ethnic group. Moreover, they found that stronger papers were associated with a greater number of author addresses; geographical diversity, and a larger number of references, is a reflection of more intellectual diversity.
......... Diversity is not only about bringing different perspectives to the table. Simply adding social diversity to a group makes people believe that differences of perspective might exist among them and that belief makes people change their behavior. ............

people work harder in diverse environments both cognitively and socially. They might not like it, but the hard work can lead to better outcomes.

........ diverse juries were better at considering case facts, made fewer errors recalling relevant information and displayed a greater openness to discussing the role of race in the case ........ This is how diversity works: by promoting hard work and creativity; by encouraging the consideration of alternatives even before any interpersonal interaction takes place. The pain associated with diversity can be thought of as the pain of exercise. You have to push yourself to grow your muscles.

Twitter Making Second Big Mistake On Jack Dorsey
Brazil On Twitter
Twitter, FourSquare: Mobile Web Thingies
Brazil And Twitter
Twitter Vision
Chris Dixon On Twitter: Not Impressive
Twitter DM: Make It Usable
Twitter Is Massively Complex
Twitter Has To Scale The Signals
Twitter Does The Deed: Ads
TCC: Twitter Community College
Executive Change At Twitter
Twitter Need Get Work Done
Twitter Acquires Tweetie: The Drama
Facebook And Twitter: The Only Two That Count
Twitter Needs To Eat Into Its Ecosystem
Can Tweet Google, Can't Tweet Twitter
Google Should Get The Twitter Firehose
Monetizing Twitter: A Few Ideas
If You Are Twitter
Dorsey's Second Snub At Twitter?
Space, Time And Twitter: Are There Plant Twitters?



Google Falling Behind Twitter?
Twitter Is Not Micro
What Gmail/Yahoo Mail/Hotmail Can Learn From Twitter
My Twitter Suspension Lifted
I Got New Twitter Now
Mitch Kapor Now Following Me On Twitter
Facebook And Twitter Suck When It Comes To Searching Their Own Sites
Going Backwards: FoodSpotting, FourSquare, Twitter, Facebook
Jeff Jarvis, Me And Twitter
The Depth Of Your Friendships At Twitter
Twitter Top 0.1%
Eminem: The Relapse: Twitter
The Best Follow Friday I Ever Received On Twitter
Twitter Asks
Twitter Number 115 In New York City

at No comments:
Labels: , , ,

Air Bonsai

at No comments:
Labels:

Friday, January 22, 2016

How Do You Explain This? Brain Power?

at No comments:
Labels: ,

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Big Sitting Cash




Why Are Corporations Hoarding Trillions?
Collectively, American businesses currently have $1.9 trillion in cash, just sitting around. Not only is this state of affairs unparalleled in economic history, but we don’t even have much data to compare it with, because corporations have traditionally been borrowers, not savers. ....... it is probably earning only about 2 percent interest by parking that money in United States Treasury bonds. These companies would be better off investing in anything — a product, a service, a corporate acquisition — that would make them more than 2 cents of profit on the dollar, a razor-thin margin by corporate standards. And yet they choose to keep the cash. ........ if you buy a share in Alphabet, which has sold for roughly $700 lately, you are effectively buying ownership of more than $100 in cash. ......

General Motors is perhaps the most extreme: It now holds nearly half its value in cash. Apple holds more than a third.

....... If the companies spent their savings, rather than hoarding them, the economy would instantly grow, and we would most likely see more jobs with better pay. ....... the 1990s were a period of low unemployment and high growth. Remarkably, the United States government was able to tax all that productive corporate behavior so much that it came close to paying off all its debts for the first time in 160 years........

holding on to cash and carefully shifting it among subsidiaries, especially foreign ones, is a great tool to shrink your tax bill.

....... Google buys about one company a week, on average ..... Companies like Google and GM are holding on to far more cash — many times more — than could possibly be explained by emergency funds and tax efficiencies and M.&A. intimidation put together. ...... finance economists agree that there is a puzzle here ..... a large cash hoard is a sign of an unhealthy company. Maybe its whole industry is doing so poorly that there is nothing worth investing in ....... Corporations, it seems, may have amassed at least a good chunk of that $1.9 trillion in mysterious savings because the stock market is rewarding them for it. ........ both the executives and the investors in these industries believe that something big is coming, but — this is crucial — they’re not sure what it will be. .....

Their hoarding of it hints that they think the next transformative innovation could be just around the corner.



These trillions should go into Clean Energy and Global South infrastructure. There will be solid if not sexy returns. A 10% annual growth beats zero. A trillion going into clean energy makes global warming talk mostly history.

Related articles


at No comments:
Labels: , , , , ,

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Computers Create Jobs






The Automation Paradox

When computers start doing the work of people, the need for people often increases.
automation as a cause of the slow recovery from the Great Recession and the “hollowing out of the middle class.” Others see white-collar automation as causing a level of persistent technological unemployment that demands policies that would redistribute wealth.

Robot panic is in full swing.

.......... It turns out that workers will have greater employment opportunities if their occupation undergoes some degree of computer automation. As long as they can learn to use the new tools, automation will be their friend. ......... While electronic discovery software has become a billion-dollar business since the late 1990s, jobs for paralegals and legal-support workers actually grew faster than the labor force as a whole, adding over 50,000 jobs since 2000, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The number of lawyers increased by a quarter of a million. ....... Something similar happened when ATMs automated the tasks of bank tellers and when barcode scanners automated the work of cashiers: Rather than contributing to unemployment, the number of workers in these occupations grew. ...... Automation reduces the cost of a product or service, and lower prices tend to attract more customers. Software made it cheaper and faster to trawl through legal documents, so law firms searched more documents and judges allowed more and more-expansive discovery requests. Likewise, ATMs made it cheaper to operate bank branches, so banks dramatically increased their number of offices. So when demand increases enough in response to lower prices, employment goes up with automation, not down. And this is what has been happening with computer automation overall during the last three decades. It’s also what happened during the Industrial Revolution when automation in textiles, steel-making, and a whole range of other industries led to a major increase in manufacturing jobs. ....... desktop publishing systems have meant fewer jobs for typographers, as graphic designers took over their work. Computerized phone lines meant fewer jobs for telephone operators, but more jobs for receptionists ...... Workers with computers frequently substitute for workers in non-computerized jobs. ........ Computers create about as many jobs as they eliminate. In other words, automation is not causing persistent unemployment. ....... only about 5 percent of jobs are at risk of being completely automated in the near future. The main effect of automation for the time being will not be to eliminate jobs, but to redefine them—changing the tasks and the skills needed to perform them. ..... bank tellers have become more like marketing specialists, telling customers about bank loans, CDs, and other financial offerings. .....

the jobs that get transferred to other occupations tend to be predominantly low-pay, low-skill jobs, so the burdens of automation fall most heavily on those least able and least equipped to deal with it

..... some community colleges are collaborating with local employers to create work-study programs that allow trainees to learn on the job as well as in the classroom ..... These are the kinds of policies that can help overcome the real burden of automation. They deserve more attention than any panic about a supposed robot apocalypse.





at No comments:
Labels: , ,

The Enhanced Human






Bionic advances to defeat death
People have long dreamt of extending the human lifespan from the biblical “three score years and 10” (70) to reach Methuselah’s 969 and beyond. ....... In reality, average life expectancy in biblical times was not 70 but about 35 years. In Britain this rose to about 50 in 1900, 76 in 1990 and 82 today. ...... Ageing is such a complex biochemical process that there is no simple route to a healthy life lasting well past 100 years old. ...... Individual organs or parts of our body can also be enhanced or rejuvenated to counteract failures due to age or disease.


at No comments:
Labels: ,

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Reimagining Big Cities

The Ultimate Megacity: 100 Million People
A City In The Amazon
Cities Can Be Much Larger



So you turn Boston to DC into one megacity, connected by a bullet train, or even a hyperloop, such that it doesn't matter where you live. Chances are you are doing a lot of telecommuting. But when you do have to show up, it is no different from getting on the subway in NYC from one end to another. Sometimes it's 30 minutes, what if it is 60 minutes? It's not like you are driving. You are making yourself useful. Maybe you are meditating. Maybe you are reading. Maybe you are checking email.

When self driving cars and semis take over, and when we can grow 100 times more food with 10 times less land, we could afford to have an Amazon size forest in America. How would that be a bad thing? There would be the ultimate megacity in the northeast, and there would be other big cities. And they would all really be one big city, because hyperloop speeds are mind boggling. 760 miles per hour. Coast to coast travel would not be a major undertaking. You probably would not want to live on one coast and work on another, but what if you did not have to show up at the office every day? What if there was this one day when everybody showed up for in person meetings, but other four days they were telecommuting mostly?





5/8/23 Update: Goshen (NY) puts Third World corruption to shame, thanks to greedy, corrupt, unethical lawyers like Andra Dumais. ..... I toppled a Third World dictator and German Radio called me Robin Hood On The Internet. I am not going to get intimidated by some small-town racist. Andrea Dumais is a small-town racist. ....... You are treating me worse than the people 2,000 years ago.
at No comments:
Labels: , , , ,
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)