Skip to main content

Naomi Karten's Blog

Blog

Naomi Karten's Blog

Naomi Karten has always been fascinated by human behavior. In this blog, she focuses on observations, thoughts, ideas, and the wisdom of others as it concerns people and how they function (or don’t), particularly in organizations.

Blog Post
May 26 2009 - 9:07pm
In a book called Supersense: Why We Believe in the Unbelievable by Bruce M. Hood, I came across some intriguing research about rigid thinking. The research entailed asking three groups of kids—four-year-olds, six-year-olds, and eight-year-olds—to balance rods of different lengths on a pencil. All three age groups were able to quickly figure out that to balance a rod, they had to place it at the...
Read More
Blog Post
| Comments: (1)
May 21 2009 - 8:49pm
There's an excellent article in today's New York Times (5/21/09) by Daniel Gilbert, a professor of psychology at Harvard University and author of Stumbling on Happiness, a book I recommend and frequently quote in my own writings. The article is called "What You Don't Know Makes You Nervous" and the gist of it is that people tend to be more content knowing the worst case scenario than facing the...
Read More
Blog Post
| Comments: (2)
May 13 2009 - 7:50pm
Am I the only one who gets bugged about the misuse—and misunderstanding—of the term "average"? One recent instance, for example, is the much-touted statistic regarding flu outbreaks—that every year, an average of 36,000 people die from the flu.False!Every year, the number of people who die is nothing more nor less than the number who die. The average of 36,000 is based on whatever number of years...
Read More
Blog Post
| Comments: (6)
May 5 2009 - 10:49pm
You probably know the phrase: A quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. It was used to test typewriters, because it has all the letters of the alphabet.I recently read a strikingly clever book based on that sentence that I think will appeal to many of my software buddies: Ella Minnow Pea (i.e., LMNOP) by Mark Dunn. It's about the fictional island of Nollop off the coast of South Carolina where...
Read More
Blog Post
Apr 30 2009 - 3:48pm
What were they thinking? Or were they thinking? Bad enough doing the photo op in lower Manhattan. But to do it without informing the public! And from what I've read, it was a deliberate decision not to inform the public.It's easy to take potshots when things like this happen. But things like this happen all the time, especially in the workplace. Have you ever had a situation where someone...
Read More
Blog Post
Apr 27 2009 - 9:25pm
Here's a fascinating factoid: The word "deadline"—something every software professional knows only too well—didn't originally have anything to do with due dates. Apparently, the term arose during Civil War times. A deadline was an actual line, indicated by a fence or railing or by a line in the dirt, intended to restrict the movement of prisoners in Civil War stockades.
Read More
Blog Post
| Comments: (7)
Apr 23 2009 - 7:03pm
Is there a word for a prediction you wish you could make, but are thus far reluctant to? The prediction I would like to be able to make is that Twitter will inspire people to write shorter email messages. Too many people write email messages that are way too long. (I include myself here.)
Read More
Blog Post
Apr 19 2009 - 6:21pm
Well, I certainly didn't figure that my first post for this blog would be triggered by the frenzy this past week over Susan Boyle, the whoda-thunkit singer on the British TV talent show. The judges' tone of voice, words, and facial expressions showed that they knew—they knew—that Susan Boyle was not Someone Who Could Sing. She fit their image of a loser. And they were wrong. They had prejudged...
Read More