Author Archives: Mike

No More E-mail Folders

An article flew by yesterday that highlights e-mail folders as a waste of time. This is the philosophy behind the GMail inbox.

Filing email in folders is a waste of timeIf you file your emails into folders in your email program you’re wasting your time, according to a study by IBM Research. The 345-user study found that people who used the search function in their email program could find relevant emails as easily as those who had categorised each email into folders.

Finding emails by searches took on average 17 seconds, versus 58 seconds finding the emails by folder. The likelihood of success – that is, finding the intended email – was no greater when it had been filed in a folder.

CEO Pay & Performance

More studies keep coming out that show a decoupling from CEO pay and performance. From this study:

The researchers studied how three levels of incentives affected performance of different tasks. Confirming their hypothesis, but likely confounding those compensation-setting boards, the academics found that while performance often improved from low-incentive to midlevel-incentive, it decreased across the board when incentives were at the highest level.

US Tax Levels vs GDP

Lane Kenworthy has posted an excellent write-up on whether high tax levels affect GDP. He walks through a comparison of the United Stats vs Denmark vs Sweden and observed that, despite higher tax levels in Denmark and Sweden, the countries have very similar metrics on economic growth.

Lane sums up with:

A challenge

At what point does the harmful impact of taxes on the economy kick in? And how large is it? The Danish and Swedish experiences over the past generation pose a challenge for those who believe the answers to these two questions are “somewhere below 50% of GDP” and “large.” It’s a challenge that in my view has yet to be met.

I take no position on tax policy other than there is absolutely zero data being injected into the conversations happening in Congress right now. Any battle being fought on dogmatic terms instead of with data is doomed from the get-go.

Hat tip to Economist’s View

Science & Business of Colors

This originally came to my attention through an article on properly designed blog aesthetics. It’s an interesting short-discussion on the interpretations and reactions to colors. From the article:

  • White: Pure. Clean. Youthful. It’s a neutral color that can imply purity in fashion and sterilization in the medical profession.
  • Black: Power. Elegant. Secretive. The color black can target your high-end market or be used in youth marketing to add mystery to your image.
  • Red: Passion. Excitement. Danger. Red is the color of attention, causing the blood pressure and heart rate to rise. Use red to inject excitement into your brand.
  • Orange: Vibrant. Energy. Play. Add some fun to your company if you want to create a playful environment for your customers.
  • Yellow: Happy. Warm. Alert. Yellow can be an attractor for your business with a relaxed feeling.
  • Green: Natural. Healthy. Plentiful. To create a calming effect or growth image choose green. Go green go.
  • Purple: Royalty. Wise. Celebration. Maybe add some purple tones to your look for your premium service business.
  • Blue: Loyal. Peaceful. Trustworthy. Blue is the most popular and neutral color on a global scale. A safe choice for a business building customer loyalty.