Team Knowledge, Ideas, Design Color, & Better Questions

Feeling the heat: The effects of performance pressure on teams' knowledge use and performance - Heidi K. Gardner in Harvard Business School

Why do some teams fail to use their members' knowledge effectively, even after they have correctly identified each other's expertise? This paper identifies performance pressure as a critical barrier to effective knowledge utilization. Performance pressure creates threat rigidity effects in teams, meaning that they default to using the expertise of high-status members while becoming less effective at using team members with deep client knowledge.

Synaptic Cleft - SciVee

Need an idea on how to turn a topic into a creative piece of art? Then check out this parody of Wu-Tang Clan's "Gravel Pit" that was made into a short film for Human Biology 4A's unit on Neuroscience. Includes the lyrics in case you have a hard time following the rap.

14 Brilliant Tools for Evaluating Your Design's Colors - Six Revisions

Making sure that you choose the appropriate colors for a design is very important for readability. In addition, ensuring that the colors you select are viewable by persons with vision deficiencies such as color blindness is a good practice to follow when thinking about web accessibility. Also check out their article, 10 Things Every Web Designer Just Starting Out Should Know.

How to Ask Better Questions - HBP

The most effective and empowering questions create value in one or more of the following ways:

• They create clarity: "Can you explain more about this situation?"
• They construct better working relations: Instead of "Did you make your sales goal?" ask, "How have sales been going?"
• They help people think analytically and critically: "What are the consequences of going this route?"
• They inspire people to reflect and see things in fresh, unpredictable ways: "Why did this work?"
• They encourage breakthrough thinking: "Can that be done in any other way?"
• They challenge assumptions: "What do you think you will lose if you start sharing responsibility for the implementation process?"
• They create ownership of solutions: "Based on your experience, what do you suggest we do here?"