Videos

The acclaimed economist talks oil prices, energy independence, and America’s unavoidable market vulnerability.

Fewer people today call themselves “salespeople” than in years past. According to author Dan Pink, that doesn’t mean the rest of us are selling any less. We’re just not peddling products.

Choreographer Elizabeth Streb takes us through the theory and practice of PopAction, her particular brand of extreme action dance.

The author and neuroscientist argues that, despite its spooky etymology, there’s no better word than “spirituality” to describe the personal and intimate exploration of human consciousness.

Five years ago, Iceland was a failed financial state. Today it’s Exhibit A for revitalization after a financial crisis. The reason why? The will of the people was prioritized over the perceived financial interests of the markets.

The retired Massachusetts congressman shares his philosophy on the therapeutic and polemic power of humor. Ridicule, says Frank, was one of his greatest weapons in Congress.

The acclaimed self-help expert recently visited Big Think to discuss his new book and share stories about what wealth and generosity mean to him.

The Science Guy returns to Big Think to address his creationist critics and warn against the risks of denying evolution, the fundamental core of life sciences.

Jon Iwata is the Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications at IBM. As a member of the communications team for over 25 years, Iwata has taken an active interest in watching the workforce change. Every year he meets with IBM’s summer interns for an informal focus group on the state of emerging talent. In this lesson from Big Think+, Iwata explores key millennial values and what every company can do to embrace them.

Over a 22-year career at Goldman Sachs, Robert S. Kaplan had the opportunity to run various businesses and to work with or coach numerous business leaders. He says that successful leadership is less often about having all the answers—and more often about asking the right questions. In Part 1 of The Leadership Challenge, Kaplan explores three strategic key questions that leaders need to ask themselves.

Business performance is increasingly dependent on a firm’s ability to manage and mitigate risk. In this lesson from Big Think+, former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner teaches the fundamentals of risk management, based on lessons learned during the 2008 Financial Crisis. By the end of it, you’ll have a three-part framework for developing your organization’s risk management strategy.

As Malcolm Gladwell – author of numerous New York Times bestselling books – points out, mastery and popularity are sometimes linked, but often they are not. If your goal is to become masterful at what you do, the formula is really quite simple: stay focused and do your time. This is the theory behind the 10,000 Hours Rule that Gladwell made famous. Worrying about whether you’re being recognized for your efforts, i.e. popularity, is a product of the ego, not to mention a distraction. . . . So get over yourself and get to work! In this lesson, Gladwell teaches you how.

You may not be aware of it, but certain judgment calls by you or your managers may be holding some of your best people back. In this lesson, management expert Jennifer Brown, a diversity training consultant who works with leading companies, explains the pitfalls and strategies for dealing with unconscious bias.

Edward Norton is an Oscar-nominated actor, director, screenwriter and founder of the non-profit crowdsourcing venture Crowdrise. Experience has taught him that self-confidence is not the key to success. On the contrary, every bold new venture naturally summons up the feeling that “You’re a fraud. This is not going to work.” By the end of this lesson from Big Think+, you’ll have a sense of the negative self-talk that might be holding you back and a mental strategy for pushing past your anxieties and fears.

Why are video gamers so obsessed? Because playing gives people a sense of purpose, and winning them makes them feel heroic. “There’s this kind of transfer of our confidence, of our creativity, of our ambition” from game-playing “to our real lives” says game designer Jane McGonigal. And there are organizational benefits as well: studies have shown that we’re more likely to cooperate with someone in our real lives after we’ve played a social game with them that involves a cooperative mission. In this lesson from Big Think+, McGonigal walks you through the ways in which gaming can lead to positive outcomes in the workplace. By the end of it, you may just want to integrate gaming into your break space design or your next corporate retreat!

Ever since he came out to the public in February 2007, former NBA player John Amaechi says he has been “that big gay guy.” But there is much more to the 6’10” former center than that. He is one of the very few NBA players with a Ph.D.—after eight years in the big leagues, he returned to academics to pursue a degree in psychology. In this lesson from Big Think+, he shares with you the plan he created as a child to help him accomplish his dreams. The most important step, he says, is knowing yourself and getting clear about your end goal.

Biographer Walter Isaacson talks British mathematician Alan Turing, the inventor of the Turing Test and one of the subjects of Isaacson’s newest book, “The Innovators.”

The renowned philosopher discusses his new book on events, detailing how they retroactively create their causes and why they explain the 21st century fear of falling in love.

Investigative journalist Eric Schlosser serves as executive producer for the new documentary “Food Chains.” In this video, he discusses the injustices of the American food industry.

In this lesson, real estate mogul Barbara Corcoran explains why the best time to expand your business is when economic times are tough. It’s the perfect moment, she says, to lower overhead and payroll costs.

Barbara Corcoran, one of the investors on ABC’s “Shark Tank” show, hears tons of pitches from eager, ambitious entrepreneurs every season. But which ones are strong enough to earn her backing? In this lesson for small business owners looking to grow, Corcoran explains how to prepare a convincing pitch for potential investors — and which red flags to avoid.

Barbara Corcoran learned early the value of building a powerful brand. In this lesson she teaches you shortcuts for standing out amidst the noise in your industry.

While other sports were slow to integrate both on and off the field, David Stern and the NBA led the way in hiring African-American head coaches and general managers.

In this Masterclass series, leadership consultant Jennifer Brown offers concrete strategies for turning diverse talent networks into business innovation pipelines. This two-minute excerpt from Lesson 1 previews Brown’s diversity training overview for leadership and management.

Why aren’t more women attaining senior leadership positions across corporate America? In this lesson excerpt, Jody Greenstone Miller explains why the time commitment traditionally required to attain top level positions prevents many women (and some men) from bringing their talents to the workforce. The full clip, available on Big Think+, teaches you how to create new paths to leadership by rethinking time so that the faces and values at the top of your organization more accurately reflect the diversity of the available talent pool.

Groups of people make more effective decisions when diverse viewpoints are brought to the table. Learn the psychology of non-conformity and how it applies to your team in this lesson excerpt from economist Tim Harford. The full lesson is available on Big Think+.

Geena Rocero is a transgender model and advocate who founded the transgender awareness campaign Gender Proud. In this lesson excerpt, she introduces transgender identity and explores the need for sensitivity training in the workplace. The full lesson, available on Big Think+, offers strategies for including and supporting the transgender, gender nonconforming, and transitioning employees within your work community.

The Pulitzer-winning biologist draws from our own knowledge of evolution and Darwinian theory to posit the physical and mental characteristics of extraterrestrial life.

The ABC News Correspondent discusses the myth of multitasking. “We literally neurologically cannot do more than one thing at a time,” says Harris.

Filmmaker Sanjay Rawal discusses Food Chains, his new documentary investigating the supermarket industry and the plight of farm workers in the United States.