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Technology Quotient (TQ): Measuring Digital Savvy

Technology Quotient (TQ)

Technology Quotient (TQ)It is a cliché to assert that technology is ubiquitous in the workplace. Yesterday’s innovations will eventually become today’s commonplace tools. So, we all live with and easily manage technology our great grandparents would have found strange and maybe alarming. But some of us are comfortable with the very latest creations – those that will only be deeply familiar to the coming generations. And we might describe these people as having a high TQ: a high Technology Quotient.

The Big Idea, ‘Technology Quotient’ takes its inspiration from IQ, Intelligence Quotient. But what does it measure and is it a useful concept?

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Confirmation Bias: The Worst of Humanity

Confirmation Bias

Confirmation BiasWhy is the Pocketblog writing about ‘the worst of humanity’? Because nothing is fixed. But if you don’t know how Confirmation Bias works, you are powerless to deal with it.

Confirmation Bias is just one of many cognitive biases and thinking traps our giant, yet lazy, brains are prey to. But it is the one that is responsible for the most ills in the world. And it is also responsible for bad judgments in business, politics, and public administration.

So, we think it falls very much within the scope of our Big Ideas series. Unless you understand the big idea of what confirmation bias is, you cannot take it on with the simple tools that are available to you.

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Time Perspectives

Time Perspectives: Our Orientation to Time

Time Perspectives: Our Orientation to TimeWhat is time? Physicists who study it don’t really have a good answer. Or, rather, they have too many different answers, which they cannot reconcile. But Philip Zimbardo was interested in the traces that time leaves on our psychology. And he called those traces ‘Time Perspectives’.

Time perspectives are how we perceive our relationship to time. They dictate many of our day-to-day and long-term life choices. To a large extent, we inherit our time perspectives from our cultures. But our individual early-life experiences have a large part to play as well.

However, the upshot is important. Your time perspective has a big role in determining how you use the time you have available. Time management books and courses can overlay strategies and tools. But, fundamentally, it’s the psychology of time that dictates your behaviours.

And that comes down to your time perspectives.

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Colour Psychology: Creating a Feeling

Colour Psychology

Colour PsychologyWe associate colours with brands and brands with colours. Some colours and combinations immediately evoke a brand. And others instantly trigger a feeling. This is the role of colour psychology in marketing.

Much of what people think they know about colour psychology is little more than pseudo-science. Chromatic astrology, if you will. But there is also a growing body of research evidence to fall back on.

And what that underlines is that, for whatever reason, there is some firm basis for colour psychology.

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The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis: Linguistic Relativity

The Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

The Sapir-Whorf HypothesisHow do we know how to think about something? Our primary mode of thinking is through language. So, the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis suggests that the language you use conditions the way you think.

And if this is true, then the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis has a profound implication for managers. Because many of us speak fluent ‘Management Speak’!

So, what is this Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis – also known as Linguistic Relativism or Linguistic Relativity? And is there any truth to it?

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St Patrick: Patron Saint of Ireland

St Patrick - Patron Saint of Ireland - and St Patrick's Day

St Patrick - Patron Saint of Ireland - and St Patrick's Day17 March is St Patrick’s Day. It is the feast day of St Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland who, legend claims, drove all of the snakes off the island.

But, St Patrick is little more than a Big Idea. Legend swirls around him. And, although there almost certainly was a historic figure on whom those legends are based, little of the truth survives. What there is remains so cloaked in myth that it is hard to distinguish.

So, what is the Big Idea of St Patrick? And what do you need to know about the modern phenomenon of St Patrick’s Day?

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Bonfire Night: Please to Remember the 5th of November

Bonfire Night

Bonfire NightThe lighting of bonfires in the long nights of autumn and winter is a tradition as old as mankind’s occupation of higher latitudes. But Bonfire Night – as the term is used in the UK – has a very specific origin. On 5 November 1605, a group fo Catholic conspirators sought to blow up the Houses of Parliament, while the Protestant king, James I of England and VI of Scotland, was to be there with his family. One conspirator, Guy Fawkes, was found in the cellars with 36 barrels of gunpowder.

From that year, the failure of the Gunpowder Plot, as it was known, has been celebrated in Britain – and also in many Commonwealth countries. Since the 1606 law, the ‘Observance of 5th November Act’, commonly called the ‘Thanksgiving Act’, Bonfire Night has been on 5th November. It’s also sometimes called Guy Fawkes’ Night, because it is also a tradition to burn an effigy of the hapless engineer on top of the bonfire; the ‘Guy’ as he is known.

That ‘Guy’ is something of an ‘evil everyman’. It’s now a tradition in some places to replace Fawkes with an effigy of a newsworthy figure of hate or ridicule. This can sometimes give offence. But in Britain, the right to give offence – particularly to politicians and public figures – has long been cherished. Bonfire Night is a good outlet for this spirit.

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Millennials and Post Millennials – or Generations Y and Z

Millennials and Post-Millennials

MillennialsFirst, the millennials entered the workplace and now they are taking leadership roles.

Post-MillennialsAnd now their successors are coming too: the Post-millennials.

But who are the millennials and post-millennials. And what do they want?

The generational certainties that organisations have understood so well are becoming more complex as the early millennials are starting to make decisions, and the first post-millennials are entering into the workplace. But if you want to look to sociologists for answers, you’ll find they are most clear.

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Globalisation: Business, Politics, and Economics

Globalisation
Globalisation
Globalisation

In the early days of 2019, one Big Idea looks a little shaky. Ten years ago, its status seemed assured. Now its future is not so clear. What is Globalisation, and what is its future?

Sadly, I have no crystal ball, so any comments I make about the future of globalisation will be nothing more than opinion. But I can, at least, tell you a little about what this big idea is, and what it means for managers.

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CSR – Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility - CSR

Corporate Social Responsibility - CSRIt’s often more honoured in the breach than in the observance. But, CSR (or Corporate Social Responsibility) has moved from a ‘nice to have’ add-on to being an obligation many of the world’s largest corporations are embracing.

Yet, while some do it with relish, others display more reticence. And it sometimes seems that no two of them have the same interpretation of what it means. After all, the centuries old profit motive is easy to define and straightforward to measure. But social responsibility… Is that about development, fairness, environmentalism, or what?

It turns out that it’s a bit of everything.

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