by Mawer Investment Management, via The Art of Boring Blog
Demonstrating customer satisfaction at the push of a button; an alternative perspective on the current bull market; Mr. Modi’s thoughtful remarks at the World Economic Forum annual meeting; learning there is more to fuel efficiency than the ‘miles per gallon’ measurement; and, to cap it all off, we landed on Mars. Definitely not a boring week.
The New Yorker – Customer satisfaction at the push of a button (audio option: 22:46 min)
On the surprising effectiveness of the company, HappyOrNot, that introduced those stations with big smiley and frowny-face buttons customers can push to rate their experiences.
Sidebar consideration: is happiness quantifiable?
Bloomberg View – 4 developments to watch in the global economy
For all the consensus around ‘markets have risen too far without a reset,’ there is Mr. El-Erian’s view that synchronized growth, policy progress, less structural economic uncertainty, and continued orderly market acceptance of higher policy rates could potentially add up to better future growth prospects.
World Economic Forum Annual Meeting (Davos) – Narendra Modi: these are the 3 greatest threats to civilization
You could spend the entire weekend absorbing the information available on the home page of the WEF Annual Meeting; access to their information has exploded over the past five years.
This year was Mr. Modi’s turn to open the annual meeting, which he chose to do in Hindi.
“Many societies and countries are becoming more and more focused on themselves,” he said. “It feels like the opposite of globalization is happening. The negative impact of this kind of mindset and wrong priorities cannot be considered less dangerous than climate change or terrorism…everyone is talking about an interconnected world, but we will have to accept the fact that globalization is slowly losing its lustre.”
Science Magazine – The MPG illusion
If you’ve read Thinking, Fast and Slow you may already be familiar with this case: the systematic misperception in judging fuel efficiency has substantial costs and serious policy consequences.
The Atlantic – 2,000 days on Mars with the Curiosity Rover
Some incredible up-and-close photos of the red planet.
This post was originally published at Mawer Investment Management
