Strategy. Innovation. Brand.
Christmas – Deadliest Day of the Year
Drop by any time.
Here’s a little exercise in critical thinking. More people in the United States die on Christmas Day than on any other day of the year. It’s our deadliest day. New Year’s Day is the second deadliest day.
The first question a critical thinker would ask is: Is that really true? Here’s the evidence: an article published in Social Science and Medicine in October 2010, that analyzed 54 million death certificates from 1979 through 2004. (Click here for the abstract and charts; the full-text is behind a pay wall). Regardless of the setting or the cause, the number of deaths clearly peaks on Christmas Day. This affects all demographic groups, except children.
The next question a critical thinker might ask is: Why would that be? Here the logic gets a little fuzzy. As the authors of the research paper point out, they tested nine different hypotheses but believe more research is necessary. So let’s think about it a bit.
- Hypothesis 1: Perhaps it’s because people overeat on Christmas Day, overloading the digestive system, causing systemic stress and death. Really? One big meal causes death? If that’s the case, many of us would be long gone already.
- Hypothesis 2: It’s the stress of having all those family members and in-laws around. True, that’s a lot of stress but a lot of other holidays cause stress as well. If that’s the case, why wouldn’t we also see spikes on Thanksgiving or July 4th?
- Hypothesis 3: maybe sick people hang on until Christmas and then let go. It’s possible — people can and do keep themselves alive until a big event. But that doesn’t explain why mortality rises in the days and weeks before Christmas. If people were hanging on, you would expect to see a dip in deaths just before Christmas.
The hypothesis I like — which I spotted in the Daily Beast (click here) — is that Christmas isn’t abnormal in terms of life-threatening incidents, but is abnormal in the way people behave when a life-threatening incident occurs. If you feel chest pains on any random day, you may just head straight for the hospital. That’s a good idea because the sooner you get there, the better your chances of survival. On Christmas, however, people may delay, not wanting to spoil the festive atmosphere or leave the family celebration. They may also believe that they’ll get poor service at the hospital on Christmas. The hospital will likely be understaffed or staffed by second stringers, etc. Better to wait ’til tomorrow to get better service.
The next question a critical thinker might ask is: If this is true, what should we do about it, if anything? This hypothesis, of course, is not fully tested. We can’t claim conclusively that it’s true. But there is a certain logic about it. Perhaps enough that we can make Pascal’s wager — the evidence isn’t conclusive but it’s strong enough to make a bet. If we’re wrong we don’t lose much. If we’re right, we can save a lot of lives. So, what do we do? Perhaps we can advertise the phenomena and encourage people to get to the hospital quickly, even if it is Christmas. In fact, consider this article a public service announcement. If you have chest pains today, get your butt to the hospital pronto!
Merry Christmas!
Innovation: Making the Connection
Anybody want to connect?
Making connections is the basis of creativity and innovation. It’s very rare that somebody comes up with a full-blown idea on their own. Instead, they master a domain and then extend it. They learn a paradigm and then change it. They make the connection between this idea and that one. They put two and two together.
So, how do you actually make connections? I think of it as a three-level problem. First, we make new connections within our own brains. Second, we connect with other people who are more or less like us. Third, we need to expand our horizons and connect with people who aren’t like us. Here are some practical tips for each level.
In our own brains — as numerous authors have pointed out, the brain is plastic. It can change itself and enrich itself even after it stops growing. Can we teach our brains to make new connections? You betcha:
- Read things (or watch things) that you disagree with. If you only read authors who agree with your political or philosophical bent, you’re only reinforcing existing connections. Reading authors you disagree with will help you establish new connections.
- Use you non-dominant hand more often — connect to your “other” side.
- Study a foreign language — we think with words. Learn some new words and you’ll learn to think differently.
- Play games that exercise your brain — try bridge or crossword puzzles or sudoku. They all require you to see things differently and remember things accurately.
Other people like us — let’s take the context of a company’s headquarters building. How do you build connections between employees? We’re all familiar with team-building exercises. Let’s look at a few less obvious ways to connect:
- Reduce the number of coffee stations — get people to congregate at central locations. As they bump into each other, they’ll talk to each other, too.
- Reduce the number of bathrooms — same idea, get people to congregate in central locations.
- Design physical spaces that get people to carom off each other — look at the old Bell Labs architecture. Long, narrow hallways with offices arrayed along them. Step out of your office and you’re on a highway full of people. It’s hard not to bump into somebody.
- Book clubs — sponsor a book of the month club for all employees. Hint: don’t just do business books. Range farther afield into history, sociology, fiction, and so on.
Other people not like us — who is not like us? Well, if I’m in the accounting department, then sales people are not like me. Making connections with sales people might just lead to great new ideas. I see a lot of team building within departments (a team retreat for the marketing department, for instance) but not so much between departments. Here are a few ideas:
- Random seating — why is it important for accountants to sit with accountants and engineers to sit with engineers? Randomize things so that people sit by people who are different.
- Onboarding programs — help new employees make contacts across the company; not just in their own department. Early connections last a long time.
- Team building with other departments — emphasize collaboration rather than competitions. Form coss-departmental teams or go on retreats together. Get people to know each other.
- Travel more — face-to-face meetings are the best way to get to know people, especially people who are different from you.
- Connect with customers — develop programs that require your employees to work with your customers. Make the effort to bridge the gap.
Sunday Shorts – 2
We weren’t predicting the end of the world. Just the fiscal cliff.
Unless I’m dreaming, the world didn’t end … so we still have to deal with reality. As we wrap up the year, I’ve spotted a number of summary articles around the themes of communication, persuasion, innovation, strategy, and brand. I’ve also included a Top Ten list that will teach you a lot about how to communicate effectively … and how not to. It’s interesting to see that people in the public eye are still making basic mistakes that the Greeks warned us about 2,000 years ago. Perhaps we should listen to the Greeks more than the Mayans. Enjoy your Sunday reading.
- What were the best ads of the year? Here’s Nielsen’s summary of TV commercials in the United States. (Click here). It’s interesting that there is very little overlap between the best liked ads and the most memorable ads. That begs the question, what makes an ad memorable, if it’s not just likability? Click here for Nielsen’s advice on creating affective ads that marry message with impact.
- Who delivered the biggest Tweet of the year? That is, the single tweet that was re-tweeted more than any other. Was it Justin Bieber or Barack Obama? Click here to find out.
- Who were the best communicators of the year? Who were the worst? Here’s the 17th annual Top Ten List of the best and worst communicators. According to the list makers, the best communicator was a woman; the worst was a man. (Click here).
- What are the most valuable brands in the world? Here is Interbrand’s summary of the world’s top 100 brands, by value. (Click here). Here’s what Eurobrands has to say. (Click here). Apparently my company, Travis White Communications, barely missed the list.
- Naming rights can be an important part of your marketing/branding mix. You can name stadiums or schools or buildings. But a cancer drug? In Sweden, now you can even do that. Researchers at Uppsala Univeristy will allow you to name a new drug for a modest fee of $1.6 million. (Click here).
- What’s going to happen in the economy next year? The broadest perspective I’ve seen comes from McKinsey’s annual global survey. (Click here). Hint: they’re moderately optimistic.
- Should you invest in stocks or bonds or fine wines in the new year? This article (click here) suggests that fine wines not only taste better than stocks and bonds, they also deliver better returns.
Are You More Creative When You’re Sleepy?
Gosh, I’m feeling so creative.
I’m a morning person. I wake up every day full of plans and optimism. I just know I can solve the problems of the world today. (Yes, I’m a bit obnoxious). In the evening, on the other hand, I run out of gas. I like to do a little light reading and go to bed early. A psychologist would say that the morning is my “optimal” time while the evening is my “non-optimal” time.
It seems logical that I would be more creative during my optimal time, no? Well, … maybe not. According to two psychology professors, Mareike B. Wieth and Rose T. Zacks, your non-optimal times may be your better times for creativity.
In a research paper published in 2011 (click here or see full citation below), Wieth and Zacks determined the optimal times — morning or evening — of 428 randomly selected students and then asked them to complete, three “analytic” problems and three “insight” problems. Analytic problems “…require the solver to ‘grind out the solution’ by searching through and narrowing the problem space.” In other words, you start on a path and stay on that path until you find the solution.
Insight problems, on the other hand, “are often solved suddenly with a ‘flash of illuminance’ … or what has also been called an ‘‘Aha’’ experience where the solution seems to just pop into mind.” The process of solving an insight problem is also different. People typically start on a given path, hit a wall, and then jump to a different path. As the authors phrase it, “…to move past the impasse, the solver must break away from his or her focus on the current representation of the problem and find an alternative way of structuring the problem space.”
Students completed their six problems at randomly assigned times. Some completed the problems during their optimal times, others during their non-optimal times. The results varied by problem type. Students solved analytical problems better when they worked during their optimal time. For insight problems, however, students were more successful when they worked during their non-optimal times.
Why would that be? Wieth and Zacks hypothesize that it has to with “…inhibitory processes [that] control the flow of information from thought and perception.” Simply put, we can focus better during our optimal times because our inhibitory processes block out distracting information. That’s good for grind-it-out problems — our inhibitory processes help us focus on the solution path. With insight problems, on the other hand, distracting information can actually help us jump to the right path. During our non-optimal times, our inhibitory processes are less effective. We’re less focused and our mind wanders more. More “distracting” information enters our thoughts. All of that helps us discern other paths that can lead to an Aha experience.
So, do you want to be more creative? Just stay up late and let your mind wander. That’s not so hard.
Mareike B. Wieth & Rose T. Zacks (2011): Time of day effects on problem solving: When the non-optimal is optimal, Thinking & Reasoning, 17:4, 387-401. This work was supported by National Institute on Aging Grant R37 AG04306.
Does Smoking Cause Cancer in Humans?
You can’t prove nothing.
Let’s do an experiment. We’ll randomly select 50,000 people from around the United States. Then we’ll assign them — also randomly — to two groups of 25,000 each. Let’s call them Groups X and Y. We’ll require that every member of Group X must smoke at least three packs of cigarettes per day. Members of Group Y, on the other hand, must never smoke or even be exposed to second hand smoke. We’ll follow the two groups for 25 years and monitor their health. We’ll then announce the results and advise people on the health implications of smoking.
I’ve just described a pretty good experiment. We manipulate the independent variable — in this case, smoking — to identify how it affects the dependent variable — in this case, personal health. We randomize the two groups so we’re sure that there’s no hidden variable. If we find that X influences Y, we can be sure that it’s cause and effect. It can’t be that Y causes X. Nor can it be that Z causes both X and Y. It has to be that X causes Y. There’s no other explanation.
The experimental method is the gold standard of causation. It’s the only way to prove cause and effect beyond a shadow of a doubt. Yet, it’s also a very difficult standard to implement. Especially in cases involving humans, the ethical questions often prevent a true experimental method. Could we really do the experiment I described above? Would you be willing to be assigned to Group X?
The absence of good experiments can confuse our public policy. For many years, the tobacco industry claimed that no one had ever conclusively proven that smoking caused cancer in humans. That’s because we couldn’t ethically run experiments on humans. We could show a correlation between smoking and cancer. But the tobacco industry claimed that correlation is not causation. There could be some hidden variable, Z, that caused people to take up smoking and also caused cancer. Smoking is voluntary; it’s a self-selected group. It could be — the industry argued — that whatever caused you to choose to smoke also caused your cancer.
While we couldn’t run experiments on humans, we did run experiments on animals. We did essentially what I described above but substituted animals for humans. We proved — beyond a shadow of a doubt — that smoking caused cancer in animals. The tobacco industry replied that animals are different from humans and, therefore, we had proven nothing about human health.
Technically, the tobacco industry was right. Correlation doesn’t prove causation. Animal studies don’t prove that the same effects will occur in humans. For years, the tobacco industry gave smokers an excuse: nobody has ever proven that smoking causes cancer.
Yet, in my humble opinion, the evidence is overwhelming that smoking causes cancer in humans. Given the massive settlements of the past 20 years, apparently the courts agree with me. That raises an intriguing question: what are the rules of evidence when we can’t run an experiment? When we can’t run an experiment to show that X causes Y, how do we gather data — and how much data do we need to gather — to decide policy and business issues? We may not be able to prove something beyond a shadow of a doubt, but are there common sense rules that allow us to make common sense decisions? I can’t answer all these questions today but, for me, these questions are the essence of critical thinking. I’ll be writing about them a lot in the coming months.
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