Mobile Phone apps for election monitoring – a quick look

I was recently pinged ny a friend who wanted to know what was the latest and greatest in election monitoring software and apps, particularly in places where citizens need to play a much more obvious role in ensuring transparency and the right to have one’s real vote counted. Here is my quick Skype response: Q: […]

Read more

Handling People with Negative Opinions

I’ve had several conversations in the last month or so with people expressing negative – or super-negative viewpoints – on things like humanity, specific human traits, and technology. “Facebook is stopping people going out and having social experiences” “I’m worried about all this information available on the Internet – it’s making everyone stupid” … And […]

Read more

TedXKrakow: ‘How Things Spread’ – Mark Turrell

How do things spread? Ideas? Behavioral change? A brief run through the fundamental components of spread, and then some unusual examples of how to apply the concepts in oppressive societies – namely Zimbabwe and Libya. Presentation made in Sept 2012 at TedXKrakow and video produced by the TedX team.

Read more

Why ‘Americans are Self-Centered’ is Wrong

A thought piece on how to shape the attitudes of the masses – the importance of linguistics in shaping potential strategies People other than Americans are also self-centered, and the phrase ‘Americans are self-centered’ has an availability effect so that hearing it creates the impression that they are the only ones. Better would be to […]

Read more

Jail Time – Introducing Downside in an Upside Only World

Nicolas Robinson made a mistake. The 23-year old from Borough, south-east London stole a £3.50 pack of water bottles from a Lidl store during the UK riot. Matt and Adam made a mistake. They were running a bank that required a massive billion pound bailout. The Northern Rock bail-out added £100 billion to the National […]

Read more

Human energy is special (it is not conserved)

In physics, there is the firm convention that energy is conserved. If an object gains energy, something else loses energy. Human energy is different. We do not have a zero-sum equation that governs our energy. Human energy, both positive and negative, is not conserved. It is special. When we think of human energy, we think […]

Read more

Sex and the Brain: How Neuroscience May Soon Change All Our Relationships

You will be reading this because of the headline. You should be happy to know that you are not being misled. You might not be totally happy with the conclusions, but that is for you to make your own mind up. When we have sex (we being humans, not the author and you, the reader) […]

Read more

Inspiring the Youth of Mongolia

Opportunity. Take it. It is rare that any human being gets the kind of chance given to today’s youth in Mongolia. This giant country has a tiny population, and yet its people are entrepreneurial, hardy, and open. And the economy will thrive based on strong economic conditions, robust civil society, freedom of the press, and […]

Read more

New Accountability for Corporations: Jail Time for Executives

The OccupyWallStreet (OWS) movement has gathered momentum rapidly, from a mere mention in a July 2011 e-mail newsletter from Adbusters, a Canadian activist organization, to hundreds of locations and thousands of supporters across the US and beyond (see Wikipedia history on OWS). The We are 99 Percent movement, as some are calling themselves, have many grievances, […]

Read more

Found my book list again! Neuroscience, networks, behavioral science & more @orcasci

            http://astore.amazon.com/orcasci-20     Our Favorites Neuroscience Behavioral Science Numbers Networks Complex Systems Techniques Collective Intelligence History Books Science Questions Innovation Management

Read more