by david allan van nostrand | Sep 21, 2020 | Human Behavior, Teaching, Using Information
When I created a special course for MBAs, I began by giving my students a whirlwind tour of humans since Alley Oop*, following the arc of human history in Jared Diamond’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Guns, Germs, and Steel. Then I introduced them to many strange people they...
by david allan van nostrand | Jul 6, 2020 | Human Behavior, Teaching
Headed off to the Trojan war, Odysseus asked a trusted friend to stay behind in Ithaca and watch over the upbringing of his son, Telemachus. Odysseus chose the best person he knew to prepare his heir to handle family responsibilities while he was away. It was a good...
by david allan van nostrand | Jun 1, 2020 | Human Behavior, Psychology
Are you tired of hackneyed phrases? Threadbare moth-eaten sayings that have been used so tediously for so long that they’ve lost whatever meaning they might have had? Me, too. Recently I heard someone say “it is what it is” for the third time in a single...
by david allan van nostrand | May 18, 2020 | Human Behavior, Statistics, What employers want
One of our very human tendencies is that we are not very good at seeing ourselves through others’ eyes. Studies show most college students claim to have the skills and qualities employers are looking for today. Responding to the same surveys, employers say...
by david allan van nostrand | May 11, 2020 | Human Behavior, Items in the News
When I was a rookie bartender working my way through college, I found a grizzled veteran who agreed to teach me how a master craftsman does it. One day I asked him the name of the guy seated down at the end of the bar. “Amigo,” he said. “No, no, what’s his...
by david allan van nostrand | Feb 24, 2020 | Human Behavior, Items in the News
As each stove came down the assembly line, I plugged a two-pronged electric heating coil into a socket and secured it with two screws: bzzt bzzt with an airgun, like a Nascar tire changer but slower. Four calrods*, eight screws: bzzt bzzt…bzzt bzzt…bzzt...
