Asking open-ended questions
Being a good listener requires open-mindedness, patience, and discipline. Many well-intentioned listeners try to maximize specific follow-up questions to show that they're paying attention, but that's »
News has changed from pull to push
One of the dangerous conveniences afforded by social media is that news consumption has changed from pull to push. With personalized feeds, readers no longer need »
Data cleaning company
The ETL process of massaging training data into a consistent and normalized format is often one of the most difficult and time consuming steps in machine »
Calculating the cost of meetings
Meetings are necessary for information sharing, but are expensive in terms of time and money. If an application had access to a company's payroll and calendar »
Commonplace book
A commonplace book is a tool to catalog ideas, quotes, factoids, and other sources of inspiration. The act of writing them down helps me minimize the »
Office hours at work
Many people are shy about asking for other people's time, even if it's actively encouraged, especially when they're new. For those I work with regularly, I »
Mirror face
People make distinct faces when they look at themselves in the mirror. It's particularly interesting to see the faces people make when seeing themselves in a »
Separate comforters
In Scandinavia, I've noticed that beds, which are intended for two people, often have a single fitted sheet with two separate comforters - one for each »
Communicating discounts
Growing up in the United States, I've taken for granted that people communicate sale prices by noting that a product is X% off. In other words, »
Gambler's fallacy
Users tend to think software is malfunctioning if the same number is randomly generated at an "unnaturally" high frequency. But if each event is »