
Are you a Thinker or a Doer (or Both)?
That question without the parenthesis threw me off. I was being asked about a potential candidate and the hiring manager asked me to choose. ‘Would you say he’s a thinker or a doer?’. It was a simple yes or

It’s no surprise, first generation innovations can be unhealthy
You may have noticed that increasingly comparisons are being made between social media and unhealthy habits like smoking. It’s not a surprise given that many first generation innovations started life unhealthy until we worked out a better alternative. Social

We’re Discovering Attention is Vital to Human Intelligence – Do Machines Need it Too?
Why do we say ‘pay’ attention? There is an implication that it costs something to do it. Using that word is closer to the truth that perhaps we realize. After all it costs us time and effort to focus our

social media needs to be less addictive but also More Useful
You might notice an anxiety when you use social media or anywhere with user generated content. Or rather I should say, you might notice anxiety when you haven’t used it in a while. Maybe it’s best described as ‘feed FOMO’.

Reality, Consciousness and a theory called Biocentrism
First a caveat. I don’t know how established ‘Biocentrism’ is as a theory. My interest in quantum physics led me to theories on reality and consciousness and then I discovered a book published in 2017 called ‘Beyond Biocentrism’ by Robert

What is Psychophysics and what does it tell us? A quick intro
I came across the term in a new book by Frank Wilczek called ‘The Ten Keys of Reality’. which was just released this month. I’ve been a fan of the author since reading ‘The Beautiful Question’ – a wonderful book

Why create a new platform just for help?
Most humans like to help each other out. There is a psychology and philosophy to how we do it already (online or in person) but there are also opportunities to create better, mindful new ‘help platforms’. Let’s begin with more

One thing Artificial Intelligence can’t give you
In the battle between AI vs human, one vital thing AI can’t give you is first hand experience. When it comes to advice or recommendations in particular, the benefit of real experience, can make it much more valuable. In my

Get ready for a new ‘Wisdom Economy’ – Knowledge has a Price
The knowledge economy is an economic system where people give their knowledge in exchange for monetary value or some kind of alternative reward. It’s been around forever. Humans have always shared knowledge in return for rewards so nothing new there.

Recommendations? The best ones come from humans
If you’re looking for a really good recommendation where do you go? Online recommendations usually apply an algorithm based on previous history or popularity. The problem with that approach is that we often get served more of the same (sometimes

To make products ‘Human Centered’ first let’s find out more about Humans
We’re hearing it more and more – ‘let’s make things more human’. We kind of know what that means but it’s not often clear enough to translate into a set of requirements. Being human is an aspiration to make something

Can we Codify Reason? Design for a New ‘Thinking’ Machine
Reason or the act of reasoning is a hard thing to pin down. It seems similar to Logic but it also feels close to understanding. What is Reason? The exact definition is arguable yet we can be certain it is