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The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable
Nassim Nicholas Taleb
Our book description:
Why are we recommending a book on the impact
of the highly improbable?
Because innovation often follows the "Black
Swan" phenomenon that author
Nassim Taleb documents. What is a "black
swan?" It is a highly improbable
event with three principal characteristics:
It is unpredictable; it carries
a massive impact; and, after the fact, we
concoct an explanation that makes
it appear less random, and more predictable,
than it was. The astonishing
success of Google was a black swan; so was
9/11. For Nassim Nicholas Taleb,
black swans underlie almost everything about
our world, from the rise of
religions to events in our own personal
lives.
Why do we not acknowledge the phenomenon of
black swans until after they
occur? Part of the answer, according to
Taleb, is that humans are hardwired
to learn specifics when they should be
focused on generalities. We
concentrate on things we already know and
time and time again fail to take
into consideration what we don't know. We
are, therefore, unable to truly
estimate opportunities, too vulnerable to the
impulse to simplify, narrate,
and categorize, and not open enough to
rewarding those who can imagine the
"impossible."
For years, Taleb has studied how we fool
ourselves into thinking we know
more than we actually do. We restrict our
thinking to the irrelevant and
inconsequential, while large events continue
to surprise us and shape our
world. Now, in this revelatory book, Taleb
explains everything we know about
what we don't know. He offers surprisingly
simple tricks for dealing with
black swans and benefiting from them.
Elegant, startling, and universal in its
applications The Black Swan will
change the way you look at the world. Taleb
is a vastly entertaining writer,
with wit, irreverence, and unusual stories to
tell. He has a polymathic
command of subjects ranging from cognitive
science to business to
probability theory. The Black Swan is a
landmark book-itself a black swan.
Purchase from Amazon.com
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The 2007 PCD Awards
It's that time again - a chance to gain
recognition for yourself, your organization,
your solution or tool, and your business
sponsor. EPSScentral is accepting entries
for the PCD Awards, this year in two
categories -- PCD Solutions and Extraordinary
PCD Tools. Permitted entries include
in-production solutions and tools --
currently deployed to real users, or
currently marketed and sold to customers, and
concept stage solutions and tools --
functioning proofs-of-concept, design
prototypes and products that are scheduled
for but not yet in production but have
measurable or anticipated measurable PCD
value. The deadline for entries is 01 August
2007, midnight eastern daylight savings time
(GMT - 4hr). Complete entry forms and
instructions can be found at http://www.epsscentral.info.
This year marks the 11th anniversary of the
prestigious awards. Past recipients represent
a variety of PCD innovators from around the
world, including startups, small businesses,
independent contributors and teams, and
seasoned practitioners such as IBM, SRA and
Tata Interactive Systems. Awards have been
presented for innovative PCD technologies
that span knowledge management, process
improvement, radio frequency identification
(RFID) systems, learning technologies,
metadata tagging systems for interactive
video, workflow/knowledge systems, reusable
performance objects, competency analysis via
remote capture and more. As our readers know,
PCD solutions and tools foster remarkable
organizational performance improvement by
immediately establishing goals, supporting
workers through best practices, facilitating
the proper flow of work, minimizing
translation, and providing immediate access
to support at the time of need. In all cases
PCD Award recipients show remarkable returns
on investment in the applications of their
solutions and tools. Past entries can also be
viewed at http://www.epsscentral.info.
Past PCD Award recipients are encouraged to
submit their previous entries or derivatives
of previous entries, provided there have been
new versions/iterations with substantially
new functionality, new applications or
instantiations or further data and studies
that document how much of a difference your
system or tool is making. Remember,
prototypes and proofs-of-concept are
acceptable entries, provided that they are
functioning systems and where there is clear
intention regarding rollout as a production
system or tool. Solutions and tools that
show measurable process improvement, reduced
time to competency and/or improved usability
are excellent candidates for the PCD Awards.
For 2007, announcements will be made in
September and Awards will be presented in
late October. If you have an innovative
solution or tool that makes a difference,
consider submitting it to the 2007 PCD Awards.
Best Regards,
Gary J.
Dickelman
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| EPSScentral Press Releases |
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See our two most recent Press Releases:
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| 3rd Annual Innovations in E-Learning Symposium |
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Gary Dickelman and Sonia Arias will be
presenting at 3rd Annual Innovations in
E-Learning Symposium, June 5 - 7, 2007 at
George Mason University, Fairfax, VA. Topic:
Fast and Effective Contextual Analysis for
ICTs in Education: Performance-Centered
Design Fills the Gap.
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Read more from innovationsinelearning.gmu.edu ... |
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| Sonia Arias, EPSScentral's New Sr. Director for Performance Services & Technologies |
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EPSScentral LLP, Continues to Grow with
New Appointment.
Sonia Arias to serve as Sr. Director for
Performance Services & Technologies
Annandale, Va., April 16, 2007 -EPSScentral
LLP, a worldwide provider of
performance-centered technologies and
solutions, recently hired Sonia Arias as Sr.
Director for Performance Services and
Technologies. Ms. Arias is responsible for
directing the lifecycle management of
performance-centered solutions projects.
"Sonia is an enormous asset to the team,"
said Gary Dickelman, president and CEO of
EPSScentral, LLP. "Her extensive knowledge
and experience add to the Company's
management strength and her passion for
innovation fits in with our unique approach
to performance support with leading-edge
technologies."
Ms. Arias holds a M. Ed. from George Mason
University's Instructional Design and
Technology Program and brings over 15 years
of experience in the areas in
performance-centered systems design, learning
/ performance analysis, on-line delivery
systems, professional development web
portals, and monitoring and evaluation plans.
At her most recent employer, Ms. Arias
directed a $13+ million portfolio of US
government-funded international education
technology projects.
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| Metrics for Non-Transactional Web Sites |
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How do you measure success or improvement on
the vast majority of Web
sites where there's no transaction or direct
financial benefit?
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Read more from clickz.com ... |
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| The Potential Disruptive Impact of Internet 2 Based Technologies |
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This paper assesses the development of
emerging computing applications
that fall under the family of digital
applications and technologies.
These applications and technologies -
Internet 2 based technologies
for short - enable new ways of connectivity
for networking,
interfacing and producing content. They have
the capacity and the
force to disrupt existing social and economic
relations and thus have
major impacts on society. Hence, the term
'e-ruptions': emerging
e-trends with potential disruptive power.
This paper investigates the
socio-economic impact of emerging e-ruptions,
in an attempt to try and
contextualise their implications and
relevance for policy formulation.
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Read more from firstmonday.org ... |
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| Does User Annoyance Matter? |
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Making users suffer a drop-down menu to enter
state abbreviations is
one of many small annoyances that add up to a
less efficient, less
pleasant user experience. It's worth fixing
as many of these usability
irritants as you can.
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Read more from useit.com ... |
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EPSScentral Announces Recipients of 2007 PCD Awards
