Shortform Books

Spread Ideas to Create an Epidemic: 3 Surefire Strategies

How do you create a trend, or a social movement, or a product that people can’t get enough of? How do you spread ideas? What you are trying to ignite is a social epidemic, when an idea, message, or product spreads through the public masses like wildfire and creates a craze. Take a cue from medical epidemics: When a virus spreads, it starts with one person — Patient Zero — who gets sick and infects a handful of others. Then each infected person passes the germs to more people, and with exponential speed and reach the virus spreads until it

Unknown Unknowns: Things You Don’t Know You Don’t Know

What are “unknown unknowns.” Why do we have the tendency to avoid them? We’ll cover why unknown unknowns are so hard to see (we don’t know that we do don’t know them!) and how our tendency to “tunnel” gives us an inaccurate picture of the world.

How DeeDee Gordon Got Preps to Wear Skater Shoes

Who is DeeDee Gordon? How did she get preppy kids to wear skater shoes, resulting in the epidemic success of the shoe company Airwalk? DeeDee Gordon is a maven able to spot trends that are about to explode. She was responsible for making Airwalk’s skater shoes mainstream, which led to the company’s widespread success. We’ll cover how DeeDee Gordon turned Airwalk’s branding around and how ideas like Gordon’s become epidemics through the diffusion model.

What Is a Dynamic System? Why Reality is Unpredictable

What is a dynamic system? What is dynamical systems theory? Why do dynamic systems make it so hard to make accurate predictions? A dynamical system (dynamic system) is one in which an array of inputs affect each other. Whereas prediction in a system that contains, say, two inputs, is a simple affair—one need only account for the qualities and behavior of those two inputs—prediction in a system that contains, say, five hundred billion inputs is effectively impossible. We’ll cover the most famous dynamic system examples and explore why dynamical systems make it so hard to make accurate predictions.

Empirical Skepticism: 5 Ways to Fight Bad Logic

What is empirical skepticism philosophy? In what ways does it resist faulty reasoning and cognitive bias? Empirical skepticism philosophy is a skeptical approach steeped in fact and observation. It was practiced by philosophers such as Sextus Empiricus and David Hume. We’ll cover the history of empirical skepticism philosophy and how it resists five common cognitive errors.

The Stickiness Factor: Make Your Ideas Catch On and Spread

What is the “Stickiness Factor”? Where does it come from? Why is it important in business, sales, and marketing? The Stickiness Factor is the idea that you can change the presentation of a message to make it more contagious and stickier (having a more lasting impact). This idea was popularized in Malcolm Gladwell’s book The Tipping Point. We’ll cover examples of products and messages that have the stickiness factor and look at why the message needs to be sticky for businesses to succeed.

What Is Confirmation Bias? Definition + Examples

What is confirmation bias? What is the confirmation bias definition, and what are some clear confirmation bias examples? Confirmation bias is the tendency to only see the evidence that confirms the beliefs you already hold. We select evidence on the basis of preconceived frameworks, biases, or hypotheses. We’ll cover how confirmation bias occurs and why it means that “experts” often aren’t experts at all.

How We Rely on Transactive Memory in Relationships and Work

What is transactive memory? How does it work, and how does it depend on your relationships? Transactive memory is the process of relying on the people we have close relationships with to hold information for us. We often depend on transactive memory becomes our own individual memories have limited space. We’ll cover how the transactive memory system works and why it makes small groups and companies functions better.

Adolphe Quetelet: Big Mistakes of a Brilliant Statistician

Who was Adolphe Quetelet? Why is he famous, and what was one of his biggest scientific mistakes? Adolphe Quetelet (Quételet) was a Belgian mathematician who developed the idea of the “average human” (l’homme moyen) through the use of “means”—golden averages that represented the ideal human form. He lived from 1796 to 1874. We’ll cover Adolphe Quetelet’s mistake in assuming that all phenomena can be charted on a bell curve and we’ll look at how we understand the world differently today.

Falsification: Why You Should Try to Disprove Your Beliefs

What is falsification? Why is looking for ways to disprove our own theories productive? Falsification is the act of looking for evidence that disproves a scientific theory. The idea was introduced by philosopher of science Karl Popper. We’ll cover why falsification is necessary for unbiased science.