by david allan van nostrand | Apr 27, 2026 | Americana, The Myopia of Experts, The Wayback Machine
The first medicated throat discs date back to Egypt in 1000 BC. They were made from honey and flavored with eucalyptus. The first ones we’d recognize were called Throaties, invented in 1930. Today’s medicated throat discs are commonly used to temporarily treat...
by david allan van nostrand | Feb 12, 2024 | Assumptions, Misinformation traps, The Myopia of Experts
The company was facing some unfamiliar challenges. For the first time in his career, the CEO brought in outsiders to investigate the issues. At the end of their engagement, the outsiders delivered a report that overturned several of the company’s dearly-held...
by david allan van nostrand | Oct 18, 2021 | Items in the News, Organizational Behavior, The Myopia of Experts
People are sick of managers. The news is full of people not going back to their jobs and managers are a big reason. Commutes are seen as what they are – huge chunks of unproductive time to get to and from work so a hall monitor can loom over you and take...
by david allan van nostrand | Aug 9, 2021 | Assumptions, Outsiders, The Myopia of Experts
What are three things that AT&T, Boeing, Citibank, Del Monte, Estee Lauder, Ford, General Mills, Hilton, IBM, Jaguar, KFC, Lowes, Macys, Nokia, Office Depot, Pepsi, Quiznos, Ryder, Subway, Time-Warner, UnitedHealthcare, Verizon, Walgreens, Xerox, Yum Brands, and...
by david allan van nostrand | Jun 28, 2021 | Customer Satisfaction, Human Behavior, The Myopia of Experts
Salespeople looking to land new accounts call on new restaurants while they are still under construction. Vendors selling such things as office supplies, cleaning supplies, paper products, and condiments flock to these soon-to-be-opening restaurants. When a local...
by david allan van nostrand | Feb 22, 2021 | Human Behavior, Organizational Behavior, The Myopia of Experts
Governor-general and city builder Grigory Potemkin built fake villages along the banks of the Dneiper River to impress Russian Empress Catherine the Great during her journey to Crimea in 1787. The structures would be secretly disassembled after she passed and...
