A book in the useful style of 50 short pieces (each only a few pages long) containing an idea to improve your life in employment.
Ok so some of the ideas are obvious but many of them make you think of how you approach your job.
The key message running throughout the book is that if you want to get on then you need to be different and stand out in some way (or ways). Oh and do something you really enjoy!
Thursday, 26 November 2009
Saturday, 7 November 2009
Risk by Dan Gardner
A superb book that should be given to anyone you come across who is taking the latest media scare out of proportion. How our natural response to situations often comes from our (reptillian) brain even when our conscious brain does take the time to think about an issue it has a hard time overcomming this. How the media, politicians, business and lobby groups all have a vested interest in making us frightened (and keeping us that way).
Really, we are living in the safest period ever and are likely to live far longer than our ancestors.
p3 how the fear of flying after 9/11 killed more people who switched to driving in the US. The chance of any american dying in the attacks was 1 in 93,000 - the annual risk of any American being hit by a car is 1 in 48,548
p12 how people are terrified about chernobyl but regularly expose themselves to far more radiation sunbathing (or from radon gas)
p13 car kill more people than handguns!
p41 how being given a number beforehand will 'anchor' any subsequent estimate
p49 feminst bank tellers and other discrimination
p53 how to be persuasive (but probably wrong)
p56, p61 it is the ease of recall of an event or idea (not the quantity or importance) that guides intuition. So practive makes perfect (or at least a habit). Also explains why fear is on teh rise even wehn we are living in teh safest time in history - the media and our society keep talking about frightening things!
p120 the frightening lack of numeracy in the general population
p132 confirmation bias - once we have a belief in our head we filter incoming information and reject that which doesn't agree with it.
p136 groupthink - leads to more extreeme views
p145/389 4 views of an ideal community or organisation
p222 fear of strangers vs the real statistics of crime
p269 cancer overwhelmingly not caused by man-made chemicals
p281 the fallacy of ignoring age in cancer deaths (it is the biggest risk factor)
p294 how we could really improve the nations health (don't smoke, eat less exercise more)
p301 various lifetime risks vs terriorism: lifetime risk of an American being killed by lightning;1 in 79,746 venomous plant or animal 1 in 39,873 drowning in a bathtub 1 in 11,289 committing sucide 1 in 119 or dying in a car crash 1 in 84 - lifetime risk, worldwide of dying from a terrorist attack estimated between 1 in 10,000 and 1 in 1,000,000 (apart from in Israel where it is between 1 in 100 and 1 in 1,000)
Really, we are living in the safest period ever and are likely to live far longer than our ancestors.
p3 how the fear of flying after 9/11 killed more people who switched to driving in the US. The chance of any american dying in the attacks was 1 in 93,000 - the annual risk of any American being hit by a car is 1 in 48,548
p12 how people are terrified about chernobyl but regularly expose themselves to far more radiation sunbathing (or from radon gas)
p13 car kill more people than handguns!
p41 how being given a number beforehand will 'anchor' any subsequent estimate
p49 feminst bank tellers and other discrimination
p53 how to be persuasive (but probably wrong)
p56, p61 it is the ease of recall of an event or idea (not the quantity or importance) that guides intuition. So practive makes perfect (or at least a habit). Also explains why fear is on teh rise even wehn we are living in teh safest time in history - the media and our society keep talking about frightening things!
p120 the frightening lack of numeracy in the general population
p132 confirmation bias - once we have a belief in our head we filter incoming information and reject that which doesn't agree with it.
p136 groupthink - leads to more extreeme views
p145/389 4 views of an ideal community or organisation
p222 fear of strangers vs the real statistics of crime
p269 cancer overwhelmingly not caused by man-made chemicals
p281 the fallacy of ignoring age in cancer deaths (it is the biggest risk factor)
p294 how we could really improve the nations health (don't smoke, eat less exercise more)
p301 various lifetime risks vs terriorism: lifetime risk of an American being killed by lightning;1 in 79,746 venomous plant or animal 1 in 39,873 drowning in a bathtub 1 in 11,289 committing sucide 1 in 119 or dying in a car crash 1 in 84 - lifetime risk, worldwide of dying from a terrorist attack estimated between 1 in 10,000 and 1 in 1,000,000 (apart from in Israel where it is between 1 in 100 and 1 in 1,000)
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