The Pen Is Mightier than the Keyboard
My students tend to use their laptops in classes. I have forwarded this very interesting article by Mueller & Oppenheimer (2014) to them. It was published in one of the most influential journals in psychology and contains good arguments to stop this practice. First, the authors summarize existing research that finds that laptops serve as distractions. Students typically self-report a belief that laptops in class are beneficial. Even when they admit that laptops distract them, they believe the benefits outweigh the costs. Research finds that students using laptops are not on task, show lower academic performance, and are less satisfied with their education than students who do not use laptops. Second, the authors’ own results suggest that “even when laptops are used solely to take notes, they may still be impairing learning because their use results in shallower processing”. They found that “students who took notes on laptops performed worse on conceptual questions than students who took notes longhand”.
Mueller, P., & Oppenheimer, D. (2014). The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard. Psychological Science, 25 (6), 1159-1168 DOI: 10.1177/0956797614524581
Global Supply Chain Report 2017 (Guest Post by Dexter Galvin)
I am happy to share the following guest post by Dexter Galvin, Head of Supply Chain, CDP. Thank you for contributing to my blog.
Our latest Global Supply Chain Report 2017, written in partnership with BSR and the Carbon Trust, revealed emissions savings of 434 million tonnes disclosed by suppliers in 2016. That’s more than the annual emissions of France, and it shows that the supply chain is a critical component – the missing link – in securing our sustainable, low-carbon future. Our data showed that supply chain action isn’t just about reducing emissions; it’s also good for the bottom line. Companies with emissions reduction projects disclosed cost savings of $12.4 billion as a result of their carbon-cutting measures – double what was reported in 2015. Almost half of the top 100 projects by savings were related to energy efficiency, and with a payback period of three years or less, the majority of projects had an attractive investment profile too. While the savings achieved by suppliers were certainly impressive, around half of the 4,300 companies we surveyed didn’t report any emissions reduction activities at all. So think what the impact could be – on costs and carbon levels – if they all took action?
Dexter runs the Supply Chain program at the global climate change NGO, CDP, from their London Headquarters. He has launched a number of important global initiatives to drive climate action in private and public sector supply chains, including CDP’s Action Exchange initiative. You can follow him on Twitter: @GalvinDex
Shifting from “Linear Thinking” towards “Circular Thinking”
Shifting from “company thinking” to “supply chain thinking” has successfully replaced the system managers had in mind when making their decisions. This shift has put some of the parts of what has formerly been considered the company’s unmanageable environment into their unit of analysis. A supply chain, however, is per definition linear. In the age of sustainability, we might thus need to go one step further and shift from “linear thinking” towards “circular thinking”. The circular economy (or closed-loop supply chain) could replace the linear system by a circular system in the minds of decision makers. This is illustrated in a video released by the European Commission.
