Today I’ll talk about a classic article. Robert Merton’s “The Matthew Effect In Science”. This is an important and useful idea. You can tell it is has been successful as it has gained its own Wikipedia page, here. The Matthew Effect There are many things in life where perceptions drive success. This is often true…
What Customers Are Worth
Allison Hartsoe’s book — The Age of Customer Equity — looks at customer-based strategy. She highlights examples of firms successfully using customer centric strategy. The examples are interesting and there is much to learn from the discussions. I should note that this is not an academic book. The concepts are much looser than I would…
Math And The Presidency
2020 was a US Presidential election like no other. Covid was a major factor both in policy terms but also in how it impacted the very act of campaigning. Still, what didn’t change was that looking at some basic numbers can help us understand what happened. What then can we say about Math and the…
Finance For The Long-Term
Stephen Davis, Jon Lukomnik and David Pitt-Watson have a book that focuses on problems in finance. This includes the critical question, why does your pension fund charge such high fees? The authors have advice how we could recreate finance for the long-term. We need a financial system that has at its center a purpose that…
Branding For A Purpose
David Aaker’s The Future Of Purpose-Driven Branding is written by a true legend in the field of branding. What is more, his message is a good one. Branding for a purpose is on the up. It has a great future. The Two Jobs Of Purpose-Driven Branding Purpose-driven branding has a great future because branding expertise…
Not Aiding An Opposing Group
The fact that we form groups, alliances even, is fundamental human behavior. Working together allows us to achieve things that we couldn’t do independently. Sadly, almost inevitably, being in a group brings conflict with other groups. Much work is done on how we react to group-based conflict. What do we know about whether we are…
Signaling And Selection
As I have discussed before there seems a lot to learn about social interactions, and that includes markets, from biology. Scientists in that area have long thought about problems that concern markets. For example, how can selection work to change a population? Or how can you interpret messages when those sending the messages have an…
Messaging About Sustainability
Jason Hickel wants a fundamentally changed world which he discusses in Less is More. Other posts have noted technical and historical challenges in his work. For this post let us consider how Hickel thinks his ideas can be implemented. What is his messaging about sustainability? For the sake of argument let’s assume that you think…
Sustainability And Grand Historical Sweeps
One way of arguing for the value of sustainability is to suggest that we (humans, westerners, whatever) have declined from a past that was more in touch with nature. Jason Hickel does this by combining ideas about sustainability and grand historical sweeps. History Is Very Much In The Past This isn’t the approach I would…
Modern Business And Sustainability
I was disappointed by Jason Hickel’s Less Is More. I had a number of concerns that fit under three headings, lack of economic/business understanding, lack of historical understanding, and divorce from political reality. Today I’ll discuss the technical business elements of my complaint about Hickel’s book. Let us discuss modern business and sustainability Modern Business…