What are the metrics that will really matter. We spend so much time measuring what doesn't matter and not recognizing that what does matter is immeasurable.

The key take-away is that all of us, when making a decision, need to carefully think through what we absolutely need to know in order to make a good decision, rather than delaying decision making and leaning on the crutch of more time to gather non-essential data that may contribute to a poorer decision.

Though perhaps not the first to pluck the whole unnecessary tent-pitching business out of camping, Seoul-based studio ArchiWorkshophas certainly taken the semi-ridiculous art of glamping—that's glamour camping, naturally—to the next level with this so-called Glamping for Glampers line of luxe, high-tech tents. Clustered in a quiet valley in Yang-Pyeong, South Korea, the tents come in both a long, worm-like shape, as well as a circular variation that's designed to resemble a pebble, but looks...

My best advice is from Guy Kawasaki who has offered this advice to everyone through speeches and it’s also in Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and Actionsbut I’ve had the opportunity to discuss with him personally so I have a deeper personal understanding.

Guy’s advice, “Become a baker, not an eater. For an “eater,” the world is a zero sum game. There is a limited pie with only so many pieces. A “baker,” however, looks at the world in terms of “Wow. I can bake more pies. I can...

A fool learns from his own mistakes. The wise man learns from the mistakes of others. Here are 8 truths learned by others much smarter than me, so you don’t have to make the same mistakes.

1. Let Your Money Do The Talking...

A lot of people ask me: “How do you do business in China if you can’t speak their languages?” I tell them: “I do business in USD – everybody speaks that language.” Business is always conducted in the language of the person paying the bills. The intelligent seller will...

James Surowieck recently published an article in The New Yorker entitled “Twilight of the Brands,” in which he suggests that brands are losing their ability to influence consumers. His logic was based on a book by my friend Itamar Simonson and Emanual Rosen,Absolute Value in which the authors argue that customers are now able to behave much more rationally than in the past in light of increased access to objective information about products and services through the Internet. Users of products...

I read a blog post this summer that changed my whole perspective on what it means to be truly creative, as well as what it means to be a parent, and a leader. Sounds like a high order, and indeed it is.

The post was by a woman named Mica Angela Hendricks, an artist and illustrator. She told a story on her blog, Busy Mockingbird, about how she learned an important and surprising lesson in creativity from her 4 year-old daughter. The lesson was this: You can increase your creativity by letting...

Some say that Steve Jobs is famous for saying that he never asked for Customer feedback. But when Ron Johnson was tasked with creating the Apple Retail store experience he needed a way to benchmark Customer loyalty. That same question had occupied the minds of management consulting firm Bain & Co. They found that many customer surveys failed to measure this important metric, and so they began a journey to develop a single question that could act as a customer loyalty benchmark. We'll see how...

You can view budgeting as a way to invest in trust – you’re empowering teams,communicating openly, and building in accountability. Some organizations need practice on this one, so here are a few ways to tell if your budgeting is falling short:

1) Too much smoke, too many mirrors: High-trust organizations craft budgets that reflect their priorities about spending time, money and energy. Without a budget that embodies values, what you say is just advertising. That can erode trust. A business...

A new research study by SDL digs deep into the behaviors of millennials and how they interact with brands, media and content. The study sampled more than 300 millennials in the U.S. (ages 18-36), all college educated and employed full-time. The study itself builds on the SDL's recent Privacy Study that found 79 percent of customers are willing to provide personal information to a brand they trust. Here are some highlights that you may find interesting, all which would be suitable bullet...

In his 2013 letter to shareholders, CEO Jeff Bezos noted, “We build automated systems that look for occasions when we’ve provided a customer experience that isn’t up to our standards, and those systems then proactively refund customers.” So if you are due a refund because your Amazon video doesn’t stream well, or there was a price drop on your pre-ordered product, Amazon doesn’t say “you must request such credit by phone or in writing.” Their computer already knows the refund is due, and...

Susan Cain, a longtime critic of such offices and the author of "Quiet: The Power of Introverts," says change is afoot. Companies are slowly beginning to realize that open-office designs, while helpful in encouraging collaboration, can also alienate employees.

"Solitude is a crucial ingredient of productivity, and one we want to bring back to the workplace," she said at the TED conference here Thursday, while announcing her own efforts to better design offices for introverts. "It takes a...

Monsters, UFOs and Tigers Come Alive in Pepsi Max Bus Shelter Prank

BY TODD WASSERMAN11 HOURS AGO

Pepsi Max, which struck viral gold last year by using Nascar star Jeff Gordon to (allegedly) prank an unsuspecting car salesman, is at it again, this time in Great Britain.

The brand recently rigged up a popular bus shelter in London with a screen. Most of the time, the screen looked like a clear glass, but then the brand would use CGI to create realistic-looking images of...

Metacognition: An Overview

Jennifer A. Livingston

© 1997 by Jennifer A. Livingston 

"Metacognition" is one of the latest buzz words in educational psychology, but what exactly is metacognition? The length and abstract nature of the word makes it sound intimidating, yet its not as daunting a concept as it might seem. We engage in metacognitive activities everyday. Metacognition enables us to be successful learners, and has been associated with intelligence (e.g., Borkowski, Carr, &...

If you were selling a car you would clean it inside and out before any prospective buyer came to see it – wouldn’t you?

Even if the car was mechanically sound, a great car to drive and very efficient – we all know that people form impressions by the outward appearance of things – as humans we can’t help it. If you were buying a house and you saw it had a broken window or two, an uncared for garden and peeling paintwork you might not even bother looking inside. If you were going on a date you...

The idea that companies must “delight” their customers has become so entrenched that managers rarely examine it. But ask yourself this: How often does someone patronize a company specifically because of its over-the-top service? You can probably think of a few examples, such as the traveler who makes a point of returning to a hotel that has a particularly attentive staff. But you probably can’t come up with many.

Now ask yourself: How often do consumers cut companies loose because of...

As surprising as it might sound, conflict can be a good thing for your business. In high-trust organizations, it can even be great.

In most workplaces, people squabble over creative differences, project ownership, and budgets – they butt heads over all manner of political issues. Generally speaking, the more people there are, the more issues they have to fuss over. It’s just a fact of life – and work. But the difference between conflict in a dysfunctional company and in a high-trust...

What do you think is the relationship between success and happiness? Is it causal and if so, which is the chicken and which is the egg? Does success lead to happiness? Or does happiness lead to success? Or perhaps it’s a more nuanced relationship, more co-linear or part of a richer stew of life?

While it may be a largely American concept, many people think that the primary objective of our lives, or at least our working lives, is to journey toward “station happiness” as the ultimate...