Scott Berinato

A look at three new books and a TV series: The Work of Art, by Adam Moss; The Real Work, by Adam Gopnik; All That Happiness Is, by Adam Gopnik; and Grand Designs, from Naked Television.

Not long ago, the ability to create smart data visualizations (or dataviz) was a nice-to-have skill for design- and data-minded managers. But now it’s a must-have skill for all managers, because it’s often the only way to make sense of the work they do. Decision making increasingly relies on data, which arrives with such overwhelming velocity, and in such volume, that some level of abstraction is crucial. Thanks to the internet and a growing number of affordable tools, visualization is accessible for everyone—but that convenience can lead to charts that are merely adequate or even ineffective. By answering just two questions, Berinato writes, you can set yourself up to succeed: Is the information conceptual or data-driven? and Am I declaring something or exploring something? He leads readers through a simple process of identifying which of the four types of visualization they might use to achieve their goals most effectively: idea illustration, idea generation, visual discovery, or everyday dataviz. Thi

Covid vaccine producer Moderna has sued fellow vaccine maker Pfizer for patent infringement. The company pledged in 2020 not to enforce its patents as many companies raced to develop a vaccine. But in 2022 it amended this pledge saying it may start enforcing its patents in higher-income countries. Wall Street Journal reporter Peter Loftus, the author of a book on Moderna, is not surprised by this move and says it is a signal of a return to business as normal in the biotech industry. Loftus answe…

Visualizations That Really Work

New research shows emotions really can drive stock prices.

New research shows that diversity promotes good governance.

Your answer might change how you design your workspace.

Many people are seeking ways to deal with their anxiety and grief during the current pandemic. One way that helps is to institute rituals in your day. Harvard Business School Professor Mike Norton has studied rituals and found that those who use them feel better and more in control. Even remembering a ritual from the past can help you in the present. The coronavirus pandemic has both disrupted many rituals — like book clubs or church services — and fostered new ones. Online happy hours and other…

During the global pandemic, a palpable sense of collective grief has emerged. Grief expert David Kessler says that grief is actually multiple feelings that we must manage. In an interview with HBR, he explains how the classic five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, sadness, acceptance) apply today, and the practical steps we can take to manage the anxiety. Those include balancing bad thoughts with good; focusing on the present; letting go of things you can’t control; and stocking up on…

Despite heavy investments to acquire talented data scientists and take advantage of the analytics boom, many companies have been disappointed in the results. The problem is that those scientists are trained to ask smart questions, wrangle the relevant data, and uncover insights—but not to communicate what those insights mean for the business. To be successful, the author writes, a data science team needs six talents: project management, data wrangling, data analysis, subject expertise, design, a…

Research: Mindfulness Is Demotivating

Digital privacy philosopher Helen Nissenbaum goes deep on the fundamental flaws in data collection policies.

False news is about to go to a whole new level.

If we can’t stop the bad guys on the internet, should we take the fight to them?

The only way to keep the cheese company safe is to take systems offline—a huge blow to efficiency. What should the CEO do?

Negative Feedback Rarely Leads to Improvement

What Do We Know About Loneliness and Work?

Why people are uncannily good at putting names to faces

At the social network behemoth, machine learning has become a platform for the platform.

Not long ago, the ability to create smart data visualizations (or dataviz) was a nice-to-have skill for design- and data-minded managers. But now it’s a must-have skill for all managers, because it’s often the only way to make sense of the work they do. Decision making increasingly relies on data, which arrives with such overwhelming velocity, and in such volume, that some level of abstraction is crucial. Thanks to the internet and a growing number of affordable tools, visualization is accessibl…