Associate's Mind

In 1993, I walked into an outdoor equipment store looking for a pair of rock climbing pants. I had just been climbing and rappelling a week before and promptly decided that I was going to take up rock climbing. I was young and taking up a hobby every three months. They generally didn’t last. Like [...]

A couple of days ago I received an email encouraging me to cheat. It was from Twitter. Here is the pertinent part of the message: Twitter was offering two methods of advertising. Neither involved any sort of ad placement or banner placement. Rather they offered: Promoted Accounts  Promoted Tweets Why is this cheating? Because, whether you realize it or [...]

  A couple days ago Consultant’s Mind had a post on on the book Nudge. Nudge puts forth the argument that while people think they are making informed choices, more often than not they are relying on default choices. Essentially people will default to the status quo. The option of least resistance and thought. The most efficient [...]

Lost among all the other news of the past month, a story slipped through the cracks that deserves recognition. A story about the integrity of Spanish runner Ivan Fernandez Anaya.  Two weeks ago, on December 2, Spanish athlete Iván Fernández Anaya was competing in a cross-country race in Burlada, Navarre. He was running second, some [...]

Interesting study was just released in the International Journal of Obesity entitled The Influence of a Defendant’s Body Weight on Perceptions of Guilt. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the influence of a defendant’s weight on simulated jurors’ perceptions of guilt. DESIGN AND METHODS: Participants were 471 lean and overweight adults (mean body mass index: 25.34±5.91) who read a vignette describing a [...]

The following is an email I just sent to a young man wanting to become a marketing strategist/consultant of some sort. It also includes a different email that I sent to a law firm a couple of days ago. Hey XXX, Last thing from me I promise. You want to write about trust. I’ve done [...]

In addition to having an over-inflated sense of self-worth, young people today are facing another problem: smartphones. But smartphones are useful tools! But I’m more connected! But I can work from wherever! But, but, but… Yes, all the above is true. Smartphones are incredibly useful tools. I use my iPhone all the time. They can [...]

  Oddly enough, the internet is actually quite old school when it comes to relationships. Trust is given on first impressions. It’s essentially all a handshake deal. How Google Works A PageRank results from a mathematical algorithm based on the webgraph, created by all World Wide Web pages as nodes and hyperlinks as edges, taking into consideration authority [...]

  Litigation can be a battle. You marshall your forces and attack the opposing party. But there is a long lead time from the filing of a lawsuit to the commencement of a trial. During that time you lay out your strategy. How to approach the case, handle witnesses, develop a compelling narrative and theme. But you [...]

  Yesterday I went for a run, my usual. 5k. I had given some thought to going further then normal but when I got to the point where I could keep going – the trail crossing over the creek was flooded. I was stymied. Guess I’ll be sticking to 5k. Time to turn around. I [...]