Here’s an annotated and somewhat abbreviated version of a talk I did back in May for Hyper Island’s Learning Lab in New York City, focused on biases, decision making and mental models.

It wasn’t my initial intention to do this as a talk; I’d just collected a few snippets around the topic for my own learning purposes and had begun adding a few metaphors and examples to help build my understanding.

The area of biases and mental models is something I’ve long understood, but only to a very rudimentary level. Up until recently I’d never thought properly about what a confirmation bias actually is (or what it means), how Occam’s Razor can be used to help make a decision, or why we overly focus on the victors in business, sports, arts and life.

So when Hyper Island asked if I’d like to join their event series as a speaker, this was the first topic that came to mind. They liked the idea, and suddenly I found myself with a week or two to repackage a collection of low res images and scratchy similes  into something far more coherent and engaging.

After the talk I didn’t think to do anything more with it, but upon meeting someone else with an interest in this subject matter I realised there may be some value in sharing the contents of this talk as there’s still a relatively small amount of non-technical information out there.

My ‘slide craft’ and broader ability in presenting and teaching has come on a lot since May, and so posting this online feels a little cringeworthy, but hopefully there are some nice nuggets for you to take away regardless.

Perhaps I’ll do a full video version of this soon to bring the deck to life, and add my full repertoire of bad jokes – you’ve been warned.

[slideshare id=120443455&doc=biasesandmentalmodelsdeck-181023142114]

Mind the Gap: A primer on Biases and Mental Models (slide deck)

Get the latest posts direct to your inbox
There's something wrong. Great! Check your inbox and click the link to confirm your subscription.