“A Shadow on Meritocracy” is a documentary film about the ongoing research springing from the Ig Nobel Prize-winning work of Alessandro Pluchino and Andrea Rapisarda, physicists at the University of Catania. The film is in Italian; this version has English subtitles: Background: The 2010 Ig Nobel Prize for management was awarded to Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, […]
Tag: Randomness
New book (and show!) by the Ig Nobel randomness reseachers
The Italian researchers who analyzed how the Peter Principle plays out, and who as a side-effect of that were awarded an Ig Nobel Prize, have a new book about their experiences. The book is called Abbiamo vinto l’Ig Nobel con il principio di Peter [“We won the Ig Nobel with the Peter Principle”], by Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda […]
Randomness As a Tool to Produce More Women Leaders
Further fodder for using randomness to make choices that are traditionally made by other, judgment-based methods: “Women have to enter the leadership race to win: Using random selection to increase the supply of women into senior positions,” Amanda H. Goodall [pictured here] and Margit Osterloh, 2015. The authors, at Cass Business School, City University, London and the University […]
Magazine: “Randomness and Stupidity” Issue
The special Randomness versus Stupidity issue (vol. 18, no. 3) of the magazine (the Annals of Improbable Research) is now online. It’s got lots about randomness and stupidity—and much more. The pleasing-paper version was mailed to subscribers a short while ago. Click on the magazine cover (below) to download a free PDF, or buy a high-quality […]
A proudly random organization
In Ireland dwells an organization that emphatically, insistently describes itself as being random. They offer this description [presented here only in part]: RANDOM.ORG is a true random number service that generates randomness via atmospheric noise. This page explains how RANDOM.ORG came about back in 1997 and how it has progressed through different stages to the […]
Robust goodness from random promotions
There’s new, corroborating research that organizations become more efficient when they promote people randomly. The University of Catania team that won the 2010 Ig Nobel Prize in management for the original, mathematical work, has published a new study: “Efficient Promotion Strategies in Hierarchical Organizations,” Alessandro Pluchino, Andrea Rapisarda, Cesare Garofalo, arXiv:1102.2837v2. “the efficiency of an […]
Math: Advantage of selecting politicians randomly
The Italian research team that received an Ig Nobel Prize in 2010 for demonstrating mathematically that organizations would become more efficient if they promoted people at random has extended its work (as well as gained some team members). Their new study is: “Accidental Politicians: How Randomly Selected Legislators Can Improve Parliament Efficiency“, A. Pluchino, C. […]
Dead cat bounce: stock metaphors
In struggling to make sense of the stock market, people reach and stretch for metaphors. Sometimes they even contort, dislocate, and mangle. In 1995, Geoff P Smith of the University of Hong Kong made a grand unified effort to gather and classify those metaphors. Smith congealed the metaphors and his thoughts into a monograph called […]
STATISTICS LESSON: Randomness all around you
I consider myself as prone to foolishness as anyone I know, in spite of my profession and the time spent building my expertise on the subject. But here is the exception; I know that I am very, very weak on that score. My humanity will try to foil me; I have to stay on my […]