During the late 1990s I was working as an internal consultant for a large American organisation implementing lean manufacturing into a number of our European factories.
One of the concepts we were working on was the “visual workplace”
Wherever possible, this involved removing reams of work instructions and procedural manuals and replacing them with flow charts and [...]
Richard Potts is director of the Human Origins Programme at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History where he studies how humans evolved over millions of years to be the dominant species on the earth. The first thing this tells us is that, to fit that lot in, he may have the largest business [...]
A short article on SciAm website reports research by Cognitive psychologists Weiwei Zhang and Stephen J. Luck at the University of California. They challenge long held beliefs that working memory fades gradually over a few seconds. Instead, their research suggests that working memory is held accurately for a period then dissappears suddenly.
Luck says the system [...]
There is a new game show in the UK on ITV 1 on Saturday nights called “The Cube”. If you haven’t seen it yet I would encourage you to watch it as it provides a fascinating insight into learning and the power of repetition.
The basic premise of the show is that contestants have to stand [...]
Part of the Scientific American 60 second podcast series, this interesting piece explores research indicating that activity in the posterior cingulate cortex indicates decisions to make ‘new’ choices.
Learning how this specific area of the brain functions may lead to new insight into how we adapt to novel environments. And could help those who feel trapped [...]
