Dialectical Bootstrapping, Connections, Body & Brain, Twitter, & Social Media

You Know More than You Think - Scientific American

Herzog and Hertwig called their more involved process "dialectical bootstrapping." You can pull yourself up by your own proverbial bootstraps by assuming that you are wrong, providing a second estimate based on a search for new evidence, and then averaging the two estimates. (Interestingly, in Herzog and Hertwig's studies, bootstrapping did not lead to second estimates that were more accurate than the first. The benefit of dialectical bootstrapping was only realized when the first and second estimates were averaged together. Compared to simply providing a second judgment, dialectical bootstrapping creates diversity —it leads to estimates that are more likely to have offsetting errors.)

Using Connection Activities - ASTD

Connections are short, learner-focused opening activities that include four important elements: connecting learners to other learners, to the topic, to their own learning goals, and to the learning outcomes. Learners also connect to the trainer and to the training environment. This means they begin to feel relaxed and at ease with the trainer and comfortable in their environment.

Our Bodies, Our Brains - Scientific American

A recent experiment published in Psychological Science shows that approaching or moving away from an object can actually affect our thought processes. And body movements which are connected to negative emotions tend to enhance cognitive ability. The authors say that's probably because adverse situations typically require more cognitive control to deal with potentially bad consequences.

Working with 38 subjects, the scientists confirmed that either a step forward (a typically positive movement) or a step backward (usually negative) significantly changed one's ability to perform a mental task.

Taking four steps back improved a subject's accuracy and timing on the task, whereas taking four steps forward led to longer processing times and more errors.

Tech sector has questions, few answers - Fortune

Twitter the "it" site of the consumer-technology world, which also happens to be the pinata of techdom. It's popular because people love the immediacy of sharing 140 characters worth of information with friends and strangers alike. Yet Twitter is under attack because there's no visible strategy for the young company to make money.

Social Media Doesn't Sell - Business Week

83% of people on the Internet use social media. But only 5% of them ever use sites like Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace to make buying decisions.