Why Some Teams Are Smarter Than Others. Individual intelligence, as psychologists measure it, is defined by its generality: People with good vocabularies, for instance, also tend to have good math skills, even though we often think of those abilities as distinct.
The results of our studies showed that this same kind of general intelligence also exists for teams. On average, the groups that did well on one task did well on the others, too. In other words, some teams were simply smarter than others. We next tried to define what characteristics distinguished the smarter teams from the rest, and we were a bit surprised by the answers we got. We gave each volunteer an individual I.Q. test, but teams with higher average I.Q.s didn’t score much higher on our collective intelligence tasks than did teams with lower average I.Q.s. Instead, the smartest teams were distinguished by three characteristics. First, their members contributed more equally to the team’s discussions, rather than letting one or two people dominate the group.
24 Essential Mind Mapping and Brainstorming Tools. Mind mapping is the process of using visual diagrams to show the relationships between ideas or information.
Its popular uses include project planning, collecting and organizing thoughts, brainstorming and presentations — all in order to help solve problems, map out resources and uncover new ideas. It can be more useful than trying to keep track of our ideas by scribbling them on paper, and can aid in manipulating and generating concepts. We've compiled a list of 24 mind mapping tools to help you organize, summarize and visualize information, with both free and paid versions available to suit any budget or requirement.
The tools mentioned are either browser- or desktop-based, with a selection of mind mapping mobile apps at the end of the article for use on iOS and Android devices. Is there a particular mind mapping tool you would recommend? 1. MindMeister was built to facilitate collaboration for mind mapping and brainstorming, with an intuitive, easy-to-use interface. 25 Apps You'll Need to Survive College. College isn't all fun and games (unless you want it to be.)
Don't sweat it, though. Take a look at these 25 apps — they'll give you a smoother college experience by helping you study smarter, connect with new people and wake up in time for your early lectures. Your university probably has its own app, too — download it. It will provide you with a more tailored breakdown than a national application. Any helpful ones we missed? 1. Image: BenchPrep BenchPrep is an interactive course library with all the graduate and professional exam study material you can handle. 15 Awesome Gmail Plugins To Boost Your Email Productivity. How many hours do we spend in front of the computer every day?
Not only does it negatively affect our health and fitness, but we often don’t have much to show for it. A lot of the time is spent on work, sure, but it is very easy to get sidetracked and procrastinate. Before you know it it’s been two hours and you have yet to respond to several important emails and finish up a project that’s uncomfortably near its deadline. The sad thing is that a lot of people actually put in the work, but still fail to keep up with all their tasks because their email accounts are in a perpetual state of chaos. In this era of compromised online security and tons of spam mail and viruses going around, the need for secure and well-managed email accounts is greater than ever.
16 Apps for 16 Hours of Productivity. It’s crunch time at work.
You have five projects all due within the next few days, your big holiday campaign is only a few weeks away, you’re monitoring Facebook, Twitter and Instagram on the go and you have two co-workers out with the flu. You need to be at your best, and can use all the help you can get. In situations like these, technology is your best friend. There are a multitude of apps and tools that will help you save valuable seconds and minutes at work and at home. Since you’re supposed to get eight hours of sleep every day, here are 16 free productivity apps for the hours you’re actually awake. 7 a.m. You wake up in the morning and you check your phone. Email is one of the biggest time sucks for almost every human being with a computer.