Tucker County, West Virginia is the least diverse place in America. Cue the eye rolls.

Randy Olson — a true “data visualization” guy — put in some work on the diversity of every county in the United States. There’s some detail on it here, and on his own blog here. Here’s how the process worked:… Continue Reading

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Brief thought exercise: when you really think about it, isn’t the hiring process set up in a way that completely disregards the idea of learning?

I’m finishing grad school right now and have been on a series of different interviews over the past few months, so this is just something I’ve observed that’s a little curious. By no means am I an expert on any… Continue Reading

Honda (a car company) and UC-Davis just built a smart home together. Wait, why?

Our homes + our cars = 44 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. So what if the two were synced up — as part of the emerging “Internet of Things” or “smart grid” — in an effort to get to zero-carbon… Continue Reading

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Let’s hold off on writing Kay Hagan’s political obituary until after May 6, alright?

Here’s the basic math on the 2014 Senate elections: Republicans need a net gain of six to take control of the upper chamber. Tim Johnson (a Democrat) from South Dakota is out, and his seat will almost assuredly flip. That… Continue Reading

Could something called TINYPulse save the idea of performance management/evaluations?

Fact that’s hard to argue: performance evaluations/management are often a train wreck. They typically happen once per year — if that — and they’re often not even based on what the employee necessarily did that year, but rather what the company’s more abstract… Continue Reading

The process of boarding a plane was 50 percent slower in 1998 than in 1970. Can we fix this process? (Hello, Steffen Method vs. WILMA)

There is a surprising amount of research out there on the effectiveness of different plane-boarding processes — and, honestly, a surprising amount of videos on YouTube of literally nothing more than people waiting to board a plane. I suppose it all makes… Continue Reading

People are leaving New York, Chicago and Los Angeles for Houston, Dallas, Seattle, Charlotte and Nashville

The future of America, in several maps. Continue Reading

Brief thought exercise: In higher education, research is hard. It takes time (presumably). So is there truly any incentive to actually focus on teaching?

Two quick anecdotes to jump this off: 1. Last night, I was going to a graduate school class. I ran into my friend on the steps and we stood there talking for 10-15 minutes — in the process annoying the crap… Continue Reading