by david allan van nostrand | Aug 24, 2020 | Organizational Behavior, Unintended Consequences
Most of us know brainstorming is the technique of stimulating creative thinking by unrestrained and spontaneous participation in group discussion. That’s what advertising executive Alex Osborn of Batten, Barton, Durstine & Osborn had in mind when he coined the...
by david allan van nostrand | Mar 23, 2020 | Items in the News, Organizational Behavior, The Myopia of Experts, Unintended Consequences
Konrad Putzier wrote in the Wall Street Journal how after years of crowding office workers into ever-smaller spaces, we are finally coming to realize that our high-density offices are ideal places to spread disease. Because so many of us are spending so much time in...
by david allan van nostrand | Jul 1, 2019 | Items in the News, Research, Unintended Consequences, Using Information
The most common ad testing research waits until the very last moment to do the fastest and cheapest research possible. Paid study subjects are shown an ad that has been slickly produced and is ready to go. The only purpose of this research is to make sure the...
by david allan van nostrand | Jun 17, 2019 | Unintended Consequences, Using Information, Voodoo Statistics
Volume of ramp is 1920cu in vs 3 cu in for test. If you saw those exact words, would you have cancelled the Challenger launch because conditions were dangerous and the likelihood of failure was high? Me neither, and here’s why. Westerners read from top to...
by david allan van nostrand | Feb 18, 2019 | Fads, Unintended Consequences
Travelers are leaving their hotel rooms and heading for the lobby for a couple of good reasons. One is that the ever-smaller rooms have no space for tables, chairs, or desks and so are less comfortable than ever before. Another is that the lobby is now a happening...
by david allan van nostrand | Jan 21, 2019 | Fads, Unintended Consequences
Novelist William Styron wrote in Darkness Visible that “depression is a true wimp of a word.” True depression, he said, swallows its victims entirely and is so overwhelming that a better word for it is brainstorm, not as it is currently used to mean some burst of...
