The premise of this series is to work out a new way of looking at our changing world» Part of the reason we’ve had so much difficulty making sense of the complex events of the past decade is that our ways of thinking — specifically, the metaphors, analogies, and images we resort to — have [...]
economics
Continuing the series… Trying to understand human motivation and behaviour, a few years ago I finally came across this article: Motivation Reconsidered: The Concept of Competence, by Robert White (1959). According to the current APA abstract: Theories of motivation built upon primary drives cannot account for playful and exploratory behavior. The new motivational concept of “competence” [...]
Continuing the previous discussion of object bias and conceptions of time… As a very rough rule of thumb I like to apply a kind of generalized version of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle: “the more precisely the position is determined, the less precisely the momentum is known, and conversely…” [via SEP] Applied to social and economic models, [...]
Looking at the news, everyone in London seems to be very excited about the CARGO HUB PLAN: Ottawa and the city will unveil big bucks to help London become an international air cargo gateway Whether or not this plan makes solid business sense in the near term is not my concern [clarification: I should say, [...]
Just finished perusing Douglas Rushkoff’s Life Inc: How the World Became a Corporation and How to Take it Back. Note the villain is “corporatism,” not simply corporations. Even corporations themselves are victimized; they get tilted into self-destructive acts by decision frameworks that benefit nobody — only roughly satisfying some people’s abstract sense that “the market [...]
Can’t sleep. So I open up my computer and there’s a new post from Felix Salmon, “When Morgan Stanley almost died,” saying that even in this “orgy of one-year-later reminiscing,” decision-makers still need vivid reminders “just how close the entire financial world came to collapse.” No doubt. Canadians can’t forget it either — even though [...]
The book project has evolved from the “world-turned-upside-down” concept to a more general, but better-organized, case for blogging — by which I mean any kind of social, citizen-driven media. [Update: Seconds after publishing I realized what a profound understatement that is... I guess I'll just leave it to readers to figure out exactly what it's [...]
This is a more positive followup to yesterday’s post, trying to work out what the key idea or shared ethic might be for London’s economy. I’ve already expressed doubts about the “transporation hub” idea here and here. It isn’t a bad idea to beef up London’s transportation capacity as one specific part of a broader plan, but [...]
I’ve sort of been on vacation so I’m a little late with this. Here’s Paul Romer making his case for charter cities: The TED Blog (via Design Thinking) conveys the gist better than I possibly could. It’s about making ways to change the rules: China, he says, demonstrates both the strengths and weaknesses of working with rules. [...]
