Podcast appearances and mentions of brian uzzi

Welcome everyone to the 34th episode of Professor P's Podcast. Welcome to this month's entrepreneurial tip. The topic for this show is NETWORKING, there is great power in your network. It is a key to the foundation of being an EMPOWERED entrepreneur and one who lives an EMPOWERED life. “Networking is an investment in your business. It takes time and when done correctly can yield great results for years to come.”—Diane Helbig According to the Oxford dictionary, networking is defined as “interacting with others to exchange information and develop professional or social contacts...it's so important to network when starting a new business.” What I love is that even the dictionary states how important it is for startups to network. There are over 7 billion people on the planet, each one holding a key. Many of them have a key you need. It is important to find them and obtain the key. It is the only key that unlocks the door that you were called to walk through. Far too often, we take for granted how important people are, especially as we become even more dependent on technology. But as you will see when I address the power of human capital, we are nothing without people. When building your network, you want to think about your target market and then build a circle around them. Start by identifying who they are. Once you've accomplished that, I need you to identify where they might be, who might work with them, who might serve them. Here is an example: a large target for me is the underserved. I am here for them. So, I need to build my network with social services that care for the underserved. Then, I'm able to work with my target market and be paid for the work I do. My network needs to be built with nonprofits, county department of health and welfare, and the like. That means I need to be at networking events where underserved people will be attending. You understand? I'm making connections outside of my direct target. The same is true for you. Your homework: I want you to make a list of the important contacts in your network. These will be individuals who may provide information to you, advice, inspiration, encouragement, and the like. When you write them down, you can note what it is that you get from each person. What value does the exchange you have with them bring to your life? Then, I want you to note next to their name who introduced you to them. How was it that you met? If you introduced yourself to them, then just put “me.” In networking, there are brokers, and if you are familiar with what brokers do, they connect. In real estate, they connect buyers to sellers. My dear friend Henry Einstein, who wrote the foreword for my book Startup to Success, is a real estate broker and a powerful connector. This young man is a business genius, and he is able to not only connect buyers to sellers, but his ability to network is out of this world. Today, he has a strong network of individuals who have influence, affiliations, wealth, and power. For the purpose of this activity, the person who connected you with your contact is the broker. You are going to need to find out who your brokers are. If you see “me” appear too many times, you know that you have an inbred network. Diversity is extremely important to your network. Please make sure to build a diverse network so that you don't get caught up in group thinking. No more inbred networks! In an article titled “How to Build Your Network,” which was featured in the Harvard Business Review, Brian Uzzi and Shannon Dunlap write: “According to our studies, if you've introduced yourself to your key contacts more than 65% of the time, then you're probably building your network using the self-similarity principle and your network may be too inbred. The self-similarity principle states that, when you make network contacts, you tend to choose people who resemble you in terms of experience, training, worldview, and so on. We have found that executives, in particular, disproportionately use the self-similarity principle to build their networks. Obviously, it is easier to trust someone who views the world through the same lens you do; you expect that person to act as you would in ambiguous situations. What's more, working with people who share your background is often very efficient: You both recognize concepts that allow you to transfer information quickly, and you are less likely to challenge one another's ideas. Finally, like-minded people will usually affirm your point of view and, as a result, gratify your ego. Too much similarity restricts your access to discrepant information, which is crucial to both creativity and problem solving. If all your contacts think the way you do, who will question your reasoning or push you to expand your horizon? And because, over time, people tend to introduce their contacts to one another so that everyone becomes friends, the similarity of thought and skill reverberates, creating what we call an echo chamber.” If you don't have a network, you can build one! Start with LinkedIn. It is built for the business world, and you can start building right there. I am currently experiencing the power of LinkedIn's networking power. As I prepare for my transition to San Diego, I must build a new network there. LinkedIn has been instrumental in connecting me to super connectors and the opportunities are overflowing before me. If you don't have a LinkedIn profile, then that is also your homework. Make sure to connect with me. Outside of online social networking building opportunities you can show up to mixers and business events. Go to conference. Get out and experience what the beautiful business world has to offer you. Talk to people. Listen to people genuinely. Some final notes on networking, I want you to understand you are building trust. Therefore, you must be a trustworthy person and do right by people. Bad business, no matter how long the run, will always end in destruction. Do yourself a favor and do right by people. Make sure you are a person of your word. If you say you will do something, then do it. If you make a contact at an event and you tell them you will be contacting them, you should honor your word. You never know when you are being linked to a broker who could link you to your next big break. I need you to make networking a priority and understand it requires you to invest your time. You cannot build your business alone. Even if you are going to be a sole proprietor, you are still an empowered entrepreneur, which means you understand that you need people on your team and you need to make finding and connecting with them a priority. I want your efforts in networking to be sincere. I want you to be a person who is confident in who they are and the purpose they have to offer this world. I want you to be heart centered and understand that you have power in the position of humility. This will be instrumental in your success. And remember success is not a secret, it is a system. Remember to connect with me on social media. My handles are below. And I would love for you to subscribe, leave me a review, and share this podcast with everyone you know. Thank you in advance!  Contact with Professor P Website www.natashapalumbo.com www.calempowered.com Email natasha@natashapalumbo.com Instagram https://www.instagram.com/natasha_m_palumbo/  Facebook https://www.facebook.com/LdyBug LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/natasha-m-palumbo-mba-entrepreneurship-empowered/

Every so often someone comes along whose thinking and work inspire you with the kind of awe that always feels new and fills you with an energy that brings vibrancy to life. Julio Mario Ottino is one of these people. Pulling from science, technology, and art, creating entirely new spaces in their convergence, he has transformed how to think about discovery and creativity. Origins Podcast WebsiteFlourishing Commons NewsletterShow Notes:Jorge Luis Borges and Franz Kafka influences (07:10)his first book: The Mathematical Foundations of Mixing(08:00)emergence (14:20)multiple discoveriescultivating patience and tolerating tension (21:00)Oliver Sacks (24:30)hardest thing to teach (25:00)specialists vs. generalists (26:00)Dario Robleto at the Block Museum (29:00)enrich your set of possible ideas (30:00)mental library (30:15)whole brain engineering (32:00)Northwestern Institute on Complex Systems (NICO) (38:00)Emergent disciplines: synthetic biology, computational social science, finite Earth measuring complexity (43:0)capacity for emergence science of science (44:30)Luis Amaral (45:30)Daniel Diermeier (45:30)Dashun Wang (47:40)Brian Uzzi (48:30)Noshir Contractor (50:00)Nexus book (51:30)An epistemology of collectivity (54:15)the myth of the lone genius (54:30)Primo Pensiero - first thought (57:00)Find Julio online:www.juliomarioottino.com/Lightning round (01:01:00)Book: Collected Fictionsby Jorge Luis BorgesPassion: documenting his life in cartoonsHeart sing: limits of artificial intelligenceScrewed up: managing people'Five-Cut Fridays' five-song music playlist series  Julio's playlistLogo artwork by Cristina GonzalezMusic by swelo on all streaming platforms or @swelomusic on social media

New scientific research topics can sometimes face a chicken-and-egg problem. Professional success requires a critical mass of scholars to be active in a field, so that they can serve as open-minded peer reviewers and can validate (or at least cite!) new discoveries. Without that critical mass,undefined working on a new topic topic might be professionally risky. But if everyone thinks this way, then how do new research topics emerge; how do groups of people pick which topic to focus on?One way is via coordinating mechanisms; a small number of universally recognized markers of promising research topics. This podcast looks at some evidence about how well prizes and other honors work at helping steer researchers towards specific research topics.This is an audio read through of the (initial version of) "Steering Science with Prizes", published on New Things Under the Sun.Articles mentioned:Azoulay, Pierre, Toby Stuart, and Yanbo Wang. 2014. Matthew: Effect or Fable? Management Science 60(1): 92-109. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.2013.1755Reschke, Brian P., Pierre Azoulay, and Toby E. Stuart. 2018. Status Spillovers: The Effect of Status-conferring Prizes on the Allocation of Attention. Administrative Science Quarterly 63(4): 819-847. https://doi.org/10.1177/0001839217731997Jin, Ching, Yifang Ma and Brian Uzzi. 2021. Scientific prizes and the extraordinary growth of scientific topics. Nature Communications 12: 5619. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25712-2Azoulay, Pierre J., Michael Wahlen, and Ezra W. Zuckerman Sivan. 2019. Death of the Salesman but Not the Sales Force: How Interested Promotion Skews Scientific Valuation. American Journal of Sociology 125(3): 786-845. https://doi.org/10.1086/706800Azoulay, Pierre, Christian Fons-Rosen, and Joshua S. Graff Zivin. 2019. Does Science Advance One Funeral at a Time? American Economic Review 109(8): 2889-2920. https://doi.org/10.1257/aer.20161574

In this episode, Lakshmi, Shreya and Smita talk about a very important survival skill in one’s career progression - professional networking. Find out from this podcast: What is professional networking? What unique advantages does it provide? What are networks made up of?  What are the different types of networks? How can you study into your own network and diagnose any common pitfalls? Is networking a natural skill or is it cultivable? What (baby steps) can you take to build, expand and actively manage your network? Illustrated Handout: Here is a link to some notes with illustrations to help you better understand the various concepts discussed.  Worksheet # 1: Here is also a worksheet that you may use to map your network Worksheet # 2: Here is another worksheet to write down the steps that you would take to build, expand and actively manage your network. Works Cited / Further Reading / Listening Harvard Business Review - "How to build your network" - by Brian Uzzi and Shanon Dunlap (2005) Science Careers - "Network your way into work" - by Dick Van Vlooten (2003) Mapping a Social Network Understanding the value of leveraging your network, by Joanna Maunder Five ways to seriously improve your networking skills Networking for introverted scientists "Networking for people who hate networking", a TED podcast that shares some interesting ideas on networking. Listen away! Please find the full-text transcript to the podcast, on our website here.

You are a leader managing a team of people. You have become aware that there is conflict between some of your team members. You wonder how you can resolve the team conflict. You see it as a difficult conversation. You can fix a work relation gone sour. Fixing a relationship takes serious effort but it can be done. Brian Uzzi, professor of leadership and organizational change at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, has written an article — ‘Make your enemies your allies’ — in which he says that ‘the hard work is often worth it, especially in a work environment where productivity and performance are at stake. In this episode, I share some statistics with you about conflict at work in the UK and I take you through some team-conflict resolution strategies that will help you. To find out about how my online licensed training on Managing Difficult Conversations can support your leaders within your organisation, email me npowrie@nadinepowrie.com

What's a scientific paper? What's peer review? And when governments say they're "following the science" during this pandemic, what does that actually mean? We're figuring out how science goes from results in a lab to become public information, or even national policy. Plus, in the news: we rate the security of the UK's new COVID-19 tracing app; doctors that didn't know they'd been infected with coronavirus; and should we really be bailing out airlines? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

What's a scientific paper? What's peer review? And when governments say they're "following the science" during this pandemic, what does that actually mean? We're figuring out how science goes from results in a lab to become public information, or even national policy. Plus, in the news: we rate the security of the UK's new COVID-19 tracing app; doctors that didn't know they'd been infected with coronavirus; and should we really be bailing out airlines? Like this podcast? Please help us by supporting the Naked Scientists

These days, more and more work is happening in teams. However, it's often difficult to see who on the team did what. So how do we allocate blame when a team project goes wrong? Research from Profs. Benjamin Jones and Brian Uzzi finds that we often point the finger at the wrong individuals—and suggests ways that leaders can guard against this bias.

You are a leader managing a team of people. You have become aware that there is conflict between some of your team members. You wonder how you can resolve the team conflict. You see it as a difficult conversation. You can fix a work relation gone sour. Fixing a relationship takes serious effort but it can be done. Brian Uzzi, professor of leadership and organizational change at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management, has written an article — ‘Make your enemies your allies’ — in which he says that ‘the hard work is often worth it, especially in a work environment where productivity and performance are at stake. In this episode, I share some statistics with you about conflict at work in the UK and I take you through some team-conflict resolution strategies that will help you.  Tune in and find out how I can help you resolve your team conflict at work. More on Nadine Powrie, Executive and Leadership Coach www.nadinepowrie.com Sign up to my next Masterclass on 'Coaching for managing difficult conversations' on 2nd October in London. The price is going up after 1st August. Get your ticket now for £599. https://www.nadinepowrie.com/masterclass-coaching-for-managing-difficult-conversations/

Fátima Merlin e Sandra Takata Fundadora e membro do conselho do Mulheres do Varejo, atualmente o grupo conta com mais de 7.000 mulheres entre os grupos no Facebook e Linkedin. "O grupo tem como missão a Promoção, construção e disseminação de estratégias, ações e boas práticas que propiciem as condições necessárias para fortalecer o papel e ampliar o poder de gestão da mulher no varejo e na economia, construindo laços, trazendo mais equilíbrio e prosperidade ao varejo, à economia e, portanto, à toda a sociedade."    Pesquisa recente da Kellog University, conduzida pelo professor por Brian Uzzi aponta que a forma como conduzimos as nossas redes de networking e sociais produz resultados distintos,se tratados da mesma forma entre os gêneros. A pesquisa conclui que as mulheres que se beneficiam de suas conexões em termos de recolocação profissional. são aquelas que utilizam suas redes de forma mais íntima. Como vocês enxergam o papel de movimentos e grupos como o Mulheres do Varejo neste sentido? O mercado do varejo é reconhecido por uma concorrência voraz e, por vezes, de uma força extremamente masculina. Quando falamos de Liderança Shakti, estamos falando do equilíbrio de forças femininas e masculinas nos negócios. Como vocês enxergam esse equilíbrio no varejo e do papel do Grupo? Voltando ao tema do networking e de lidarmos com nossas conexões de forma íntima, quais ações e preocupações vocês desenvolvem nesse sentido?  A liderança feminina é uma conquista que precisamos encarar como uma via de duas mão: uma no sentido das ações afirmativas das empresas e outra do movimento das mulheres para ocupar os cargos de liderança. De que forma o grupo atua nessas duas frentes e quais os avanços que vocês podem pontuar desde a formação do grupo ? Para quem nos ouve não atua no varejo, quais dicas vocês podem dar da experiência do Grupo? Como funciona a parceria com setores estratégicos da sociedade, a ponta final da cadeia de entrega de valores do Grupo?

Kellogg Insight takes a look at how humans can learn to work with machines in decision-making, and how machines can learn to understand us. We talk to three researchers who approach these relationships in exciting ways. Kellogg professor Brian Uzzi studies how machine learning can improve human decision making. David Ferrucci, formerly the principal investigator of IBM's Watson project and now a senior technologist at Bridgewater Associates and founder and CEO of Elemental Cognition, discusses machines as collaborative thought partners. Sandra Waxman, a professor of psychology at Northwestern University, discusses how humans learn to understand the world, and what that means for machine learning.

Click Here Or On Above Image To Reach Our ExpertsSecurity Expert Says, "We Can Now Spy On Human Emotions" Emotional surveillance has an undeniably dystopian vibe, like George Orwell's 1984, but it's not science fiction. Banks are already signing up for services that incorporate it into their analysis of behavior. A startup founded by MIT graduates called Humanyze has created a sensor-laden badge that transmits data on speech, activity, and stress patterns.One of these days, the walls may know when you're happy, sad, stressed or angry by using an experimental device unveiled Tuesday by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that uses wireless signals to recognize emotions through subtle changes in breathing and heartbeat.Computer scientist Dina Katabi and her colleagues at the university's Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab developed a radar system for vital signs that uses reflected radio signals to track movements, moods and behavior, with potential applications for smart homes, offices and hospitals.They posted their new research online Tuesday and plan to present their test results next month at a mobile-computing conference in New York.These wireless signals—a thousand times less powerful than conventional Wi-Fi—are designed to bounce off anyone within range, capturing variations in vital signs that can be analyzed quickly by a computer algorithm able to detect emotional states, the researchers said. To distinguish one mood from another, their system measures patterns of respiration, cardiac rhythms, and minute variations in the length of each individual heartbeat.“All of us share so much in how our emotions affect our vital signs,” said Dr. Katabi. “We get an accuracy that is so high that we can look at individual heartbeats at the order of milliseconds.”The system, which they call EQ-Radio, is 87% accurate at detecting whether a person is joyful, angry, sad or content, they said.By providing an accurate readout of moods, the system promises to loop people more directly into wireless sensor networks, the researchers said. While still experimental, the system could one day give buildings the capacity to respond automatically to changes in vital signs among the people living or working in them, without a need for explicit commands or a direct link to a body sensor, the researchers said.A hospital emergency room might automatically monitor patients awaiting treatment. An amusement park might modulate special effects by monitoring the involuntary reactions of people on an exhilarating ride. A house might one day react to a family's stress by playing pleasant music.PRO-DTECH II FREQUENCY DETECTOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)“We have explored this idea of allowing a home to recognize someone's emotions and adapt to it,” said project researcher Fadel Adib. “The idea is to enable you to seamlessly interact with your home.”The team is already testing an earlier version of the system that tracks movements and behavior in about 15 homes in the Boston area, including that of Dr. Katabi. She uses it to monitor her sleep patterns and eating habits. It can track movements even if the person is in another room.“I would really like future homes to be more health aware,” she said.In the research made public Tuesday, Dr. Katabi and her colleagues tested the wireless system on 10 women and 20 men, between 19 and 77 years old, while in a standard office setting, which contained desks, chairs, couches and computers.CELLPHONE DETECTOR (PROFESSIONAL)(Buy/Rent/Layaway)During the tests, the volunteers sat from three to 10 feet away from the wireless sensors while attempting to evoke specific emotions by recalling emotion-rich memories. As a control, their vital signs during the experiment were also monitored using conventional electrocardiography and a video-based emotion recognition system that homes in on facial expressions.PRO-DTECH III FREQUENCY DETECTOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)All told, the researchers collected measurements of 130,000 individual heartbeats. To classify the mood changes, the computer employed a machine learning algorithm to match the waveforms within each heartbeat.PRO-DTECH III FREQUENCY DETECTOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)When they compared results, they found that the experimental system was almost as accurate in recognizing changes in emotion as the electrocardiograms. It was about twice as accurate as the facial cues recorded by the video system, they said.“We use the wireless signal to obtain the changes in the vital signs and then run a machine learning algorithm to get to emotions,” she said. “The algorithm can immediately recognize the emotions of someone new.”PRO-DTECH III FREQUENCY DETECTOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)Wall Street Uses Technology To Spy On Traders Emotional StateThe trader was in deep trouble. A millennial who had only recently been allowed to set foot on a Wall Street floor, he made bad bets, and in a panic to recoup his losses, he'd blown through risk limits, losing $4.9 million in a single afternoon.WIRELESS/WIRED HIDDENCAMERA FINDER III(Buy/Rent/Layaway)It wasn't a career-ending day. The trader was taking part in a simulation run by Andrew Lo, an MIT finance professor. The goal: find out if top performers can be identified based on how they respond to market volatility. Lo had been invited into the New York-based global investment bank—he wouldn't say which one—after giving a talk to its executives. So in 2014, unknown to the outside world, he rigged a conference room with monitors to create a lab where 57 stock and bond traders lent their bodies to science.PRO-DTECH IV FREQUENCY DETECTOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)Banks have already set up big-data teams to harvest insights from the terabytes of customer information they possess. Now they're looking inward to see whether they can improve operations and limit losses in their biggest cost center: employees. Companies including JPMorgan Chase and Bank of America have had discussions with tech companies about systems that monitor worker emotions to boost performance and compliance, according to executives at the banks who didn't want to be identified speaking about the matter.As machines encroach on humans' role in the markets, technology offers a way to even the fight. The devices Lo used—wristwatch sensors that measure pulse and perspiration—could warn traders to step away from their desks when their emotions run wild. They could also be used to screen hires to find those whose physiology is best suited to risk-taking—what interested the bank that allowed the MIT study.Wireless Camera Finder(Buy/Rent/Layaway)The most promising application, and the one with the most profound privacy issues, would be for keeping tabs on employees, Lo says. Risk managers could use it to spot problems brewing on a specific desk, such as unauthorized trading, before too much damage is done. “Imagine if all your traders were required to wear wristwatches that monitor their physiology, and you had a dashboard that tells you in real time who is freaking out,” Lo says. “The technology exists, as does the motivation—one bad trade can cost $100 million—but you're talking about a significant privacy intrusion.”MAGNETIC, ELECTRIC, RADIO ANDMICROWAVE DETECTOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)Emotional surveillance has an undeniably dystopian vibe, like a finance version of George Orwell's 1984, but it's not science fiction. Banks are already signing up for services that incorporate it into their analysis of behavior. A startup founded by MIT graduates called Humanyze has created a sensor-laden badge that transmits data on speech, activity, and stress patterns.COUNTERSURVEILLANCE PROBE / MONITOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)Microphones and proximity sensors on the gadgets help employers understand what high-performing teams are doing differently from laggards. The Boston-based company is close to announcing a deal with a bank that's moving some employees to new offices, according to Chief Executive Officer Ben Waber. The bank wants to use Humanyze badges to determine seating locations for traders, asset managers, and support staff to improve productivity, he says.Another startup, Behavox, uses machine-learning programs to scan employee communications and trading records. Emotional analysis of telephone conversations is a part of a worker's overall behavioral picture, according to founder Erkin Adylov, a former Goldman Sachs research analyst. When a worker deviates from established patterns—shouting at someone he's trading with when previous conversations were calm—it could be a sign further scrutiny is warranted. “Emotion recognition and mapping in phone calls is increasingly something that banks really want from us,” says Adylov, whose company is based in London. “All the things you do as a human are driven by emotions.”Emotions are reflexes that developed to drive behavior, scientists say, improving our prospects of seizing opportunity and surviving risk. They're accompanied by measurable physiological changes such as increased blood pressure, sweating, and a pounding heart. Their role in investing has been established since at least the time of economist Benjamin Graham, the father of value investing. More recently, John Coates, a University of Cambridge neuroscientist and former derivatives trader, has studied how financial risk takers' decisions are influenced by biology. His experiments, chronicled in a 2012 book, The Hour Between Dog and Wolf, show that hormones such as testosterone and cortisol play a part in exacerbating booms and busts.The volunteers in Lo's study were given a $3 million risk limit and told to make money in markets including oil, gold, stocks, currencies, and Treasuries. They came from across the bank's fixed-income and equity desks and ranged from junior employees to veterans with 15 years of experience. Top traders have a signature response to volatility, says Lo, who plans to publish his findings by next year. Rather than being devoid of feeling, they are emotional athletes. Their bodies swiftly respond to stressful situations and relax when calm returns, leaving them primed for the next challenge. The top performer made $1.1 million in a couple of hours of trading.Those who fared less well, like the trader who lost almost $5 million, were hounded by their mistakes and remained emotionally charged, as measured by their heart rate and other markers such as cortisol levels, even after the volatility subsided. Lo's findings suggest there's a sweet spot for emotional engagement: too much, and you're overly aggressive or fearful; too little, and you aren't involved enough to care. Veteran traders had more controlled responses, suggesting that training and experience count.There are other ways to infer emotional states. Researchers led by Kellogg School of Management professor Brian Uzzi pored over 1.2 million instant messages sent by day traders over a two-year period. They found that, as in Lo's study, having too much or too little emotion made for poor trades. Uzzi, whose study was published this year, says he's working with two hedge funds to design a product based on the research.As younger traders accustomed to biometric devices like the Fitbit enter the industry, applications designed to boost performance and monitor employees will become commonplace, says Lo, who expects it to be widespread in less than 10 years. “The more data we have, the more we're able to characterize the emotional state of the individual,” he says. “Everybody will have to have these kinds of analytics.”PRO-DTECH FREQUENCY DETECTOR(Buy/Rent/Layaway)Detecting Emotions In Thin AirOne of the most writerly things a person can do is to characterize air as thick, or emotions as tangible. Sadness lingers in the air. The best dinner parties are powered by palpable tension. The practice suggests that you are keenly attuned to your surroundings. Beyond observant, you use your senses in ways others had not thought possible. That is why people want to have sex with writers.But if you told me that the air is actually transmitting chemical signals that influence emotions between humans, I would add you to a list that I keep in my head. It's not a bad list, per se, but it is titled “Chumps.”One person who would not be on that list is Jonathan Williams. An atmospheric chemist, he describes himself as “one of those wandering scientific souls,” but not in an annoying way. He maintains a jovial British lilt after moving to Colorado to work at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and then to Germany for a job with the Max Planck Institute (which describes itself as “Germany's most successful research organization”). There Williams and his colleagues study air.They focus on gases that come from vegetation in the tropics, as well as carbon industry. In doing so, the chemists use finely calibrated machines that sense the slightest changes in the contents of air. Taking measurements in the field, Williams and his colleagues always noticed that when they themselves got too close to the machines, everything went haywire.That made sense, in that humans are bags of gas. As breathing people know, we tend to emit carbon dioxide. (Though each exhalation still contains about four times as much oxygen as carbon dioxide.) And there are many subtler ingredients in the concoctions we breathe out. So Williams began to wonder, are these gases “significant on a global scale”? Could they be, even, contributing to climate change? Especially as the number of humans on Earth rockets toward 8 billion?The answer was no. Just a clear, simple no. By measuring gases in soccer stadiums, the Planck chemists found no consequence of human breath. There might be some effect at a global scale, but it's just nothing compared to the air-ravaging effects of transportation and agriculture.But Williams didn't come away from the stadium empty handed. As he sat and watched the fluctuating readings on the air sensors, he got an idea. In the manner of a typical European soccer crowd, the people went through fits of elation and anger,  joy and sorrow. So Williams began to wonder, as he later put it to me, “Do people emit gases as a function of their emotions?”If we do, it wouldn't be unprecedented. Tear some leaves off of a tree, for example, and it will emit chemical signals that may be part of a system of communication between trees. The behavior for bees and ants is clearly chemically dominated.“We're not like that—not like robots following chemicals,” Williams explained. “But it could be possible that we are influenced by chemicals emitted by other humans.”The idea of airborne pheromones—chemicals that specifically influence mating behaviors— has been a source of much fascination, but the actual evidence is weak. Some small studies have suggested an effect when people put cotton balls under their armpits, and then other people smell the balls—but in minor, unreliable ways.“I don't know why so many previous researchers have been so into armpits,” said Williams. “A much better way to communicate would be through your breath. Because you can direct your breath, and your breath is at roughly the same height as the person you're trying to communicate to, silently. In the dark, maybe, in your cave.” And if these behavior-modifying volatile chemicals exist (volatile meaning anything that goes into the air), then why would they be limited to sex? Why shouldn't we be able to signal fear or anxiety? It is true that birds seem to know that I'm afraid of them.Williams was so intrigued by the idea of gases and emotion that he designed another experiment—something more predictable than a German soccer game. This time he used a movie theater. Unlike the open-air stadium, the theater presented fewer variables. “You've got this box, the cinema, and you spool through air from outside at a continuous rate, and you have 250 people sitting there, not moving. And you show them all, simultaneously, something that should make them frightened or anxious or sad, or whatever.”The changes in any one person's breath might be minuscule, but a crowd of breathers could be enough to overcome the rest of the background signals. And more importantly, unlike a soccer match, the experiment could be done with the same film again and again. This could test the reproducibility of findings, which is critical to science.Rigging a mass spectrometer into the outflow vent of the theater, the Kino Cinestar in Mainz, Williams had a sense that the experiment as something of a lark. “I thought, we're probably just going to get a big mixture of popcorn and perfume,” he said. But, nonetheless, to measure relationships between scenes and gases, his team meticulously mapped out and labeled every scene in 16 films—from beginning to end. In 30 second increments, the team labeled each by its quality (kiss, pet, injury), as well as its emotional elements using a finite set of descriptors.

The education world is not exempt. Education leaders have rivals and enemies. In this segment our guest presents new science which explains why it's so difficult to turn workplace enemies into allies. He then builds on this new knowledge to offer a viable strategy for getting more of your rivals to becoming willing collaborators. Brian Uzzi, Richard L. Thomas Professor of Leadership and Organizational. Business School, MBA, Executive Education, Executive Program, Kellogg School of Management; Justin Baeder is a public school principal in Seattle, Washington. He speaks and writes about principal performance and productivity, and is a doctoral student at the University of Washington in Educational Leadership & Policy Studies. He writes "Leader Talk" at Education Week. writes a blog called "On Performance."

The education world is not exempt. Education leaders have rivals and enemies. In this segment our guest presents new science which explains why it's so difficult to turn workplace enemies into allies. He then builds on this new knowledge to offer a viable strategy for getting more of your rivals to becoming willing collaborators. Brian Uzzi, Richard L. Thomas Professor of Leadership and Organizational. Business School, MBA, Executive Education, Executive Program, Kellogg School of Management; Justin Baeder is a public school principal in Seattle, Washington. He speaks and writes about principal performance and productivity, and is a doctoral student at the University of Washington in Educational Leadership & Policy Studies. He writes "Leader Talk" at Education Week. writes a blog called "On Performance."