Ideas & Articles
Here’s a sampling of mostly recent articles, especially a series in the FT I enjoyed. Most articles quickly get dated, but there are a handful from the archives that hold up.
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Be quick, but don’t hurry — sporting philosophy that conquered basketball
Be quick, but don’t hurry - sporting philosophy that conquered basketball
To emulate FDR, Biden needs to combine decency with a steely edge
A look at how FDR ‘really’ got so much done — from the Boston Globe
Can you succeed without being a terrible person?
There are other, better ways to manage people without being ruthless
How to make resets work
Everyone’s talking about how to reset society and careers after the coronavirus, but what takes place when people use actual reset buttons?
Knight’s move in life
At the start of his Divine Comedy, Dante wrote about being lost at the midpoint of his life; realising he was caught in a setting that was not what he had planned for, yet not knowing where or how to make it better.
So it is with all of us in our world of lockdowns and economic disruption — yet there is an insight from chess which offers a good guide forward.
The humble committee
With so many companies and government agencies reconfiguring their plans in light of the coronavirus pandemic, a great number of committee meetings have been taking place. For cynics that is disheartening…
What companies can learn from a Cambridge physics laboratory
It’s hard to guide teams. Too hands-off and the result is chaos; too hands-on and no one has any space for initiative. But how to get it right? I have found the history of science an excellent way to begin.
Science vs. Spin doctors
This one is from the FT, and dates back to 2006; on the surface a wholly different era from our own; long before the coronavirus and its aftermath. How curious that certain dynamics remain the same…
Linguistics in 800 words
When I was challenged to explain Chomsky’s ‘Syntactic Structures’ in, indeed, just 800 words, this was the result.
“David Bodanis takes a complex subject, weaves a compelling and hugely engaging narrative around it, then presents it in a disarmingly simple format so everyone can understand it, all the while holding them with fascinating insights.”