Information may arrive instantly, but insight takes longer.

... It is sort of like a game of musical chairs in which the music stops and it turns out that all the chairs have vanished.

Why is the credit panic being played out in slow motion?

In the past 12 months, Google doubled its staff, tinkered with its search engine to speed up results, and now answers more queries than Microsoft and Yahoo combined. But there's one query we had to answer ourselves: How does Google work?

Nothing special; a simple but effective explanation, along with highlights from the past decade.

How Google Works

Businesses everywhere face this kind of problem: Success isn’t possible without changing the day-to-day behavior of people throughout the company. But changing behavior is hard, even for individuals, and even when new habits can mean the difference between life and death. In many studies of patients who have undergone coronary bypass surgery, only one in nine people, on average, adopts healthier day-to-day habits. The others’ lives are at significantly greater risk unless they exercise and lose weight, and they clearly see the value of changing their behavior. But they don’t follow through. So what about changing the way a whole organization behaves? The consistently poor track record in this area tells us it’s a challenging aspiration at best.

Managers who understand the recent breakthroughs in cognitive science can lead and influence mindful change. Several conclusions about organizational change can be drawn that make the art and craft far more effective. These conclusions would have been considered counterintuitive or downright wrong only a few years ago.

* Change is pain. Organizational change is unexpectedly difficult because it provokes sensations of physiological discomfort.

* Behaviorism doesn’t work. Change efforts based on incentive and threat (the carrot and the stick) rarely succeed in the long run.

* Humanism is overrated. In practice, the conventional empathic approach of connection and persuasion doesn’t sufficiently engage people.

* Focus is power. The act of paying attention creates chemical and physical changes in the brain.

* Expectation shapes reality. People’s preconceptions have a significant impact on what they perceive.

* Attention density shapes identity. Repeated, purposeful, and focused attention can lead to long-lasting personal evolution.

The Neuroscience of Leadership

We recently solicited your questions about street gangs for Sudhir Venkatesh, the then-grad student we wrote about in Freakonomics who is now a professor of sociology at Columbia. His answers are, IMHO, fascinating. Your questions were really good, too; thanks. Venkatesh will publish a book, Gang Leader for a Day, in early 2008.

Q: Do you think the HBO series The Wire gives an accurate portrayal of gang life? It is clear from the show (if it is as real as it seems) that traditional policing strategies are very ineffective.

A: I am a huge fan of The Wire. I actually watched Season Two with a group of high ranking gang leaders/drug dealers in Chicago, who desperately wished that the series producers would make a separate show about Chicago! Everyone in the room agreed that the writers did well to show the nuances in the underground economy.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Street Gangs (But Didn't Know Whom to Ask)

This is an amusing throw-away:

It's just shameful that the best Microsoft can do for [web search] market share is to pay robots to play cartoon chicken games.

MSN Search Scam

How new technologies, a proliferation of resources, and a disenchantment with the corporate world are making Generation Y the most entrepreneurial in history.

They worked really hard to find people you've never heard of. (I recognized Mental Floss.)

The Making of an Entrepreneurial Generation - 30 Under 30

This summer a select group of leaders and innovators will come together to share the ideas they consider the digital memes driving the future at iMeme: The Thinkers of Tech. This invitation-only event is for business executives who recognize that their company's future depends on understanding the trends at the core of technology. Topics—ranging from the purely technological to the cultural—will include the platforms of the future, the challenges tech and telecom face as the connected world expands, the future of digital media, the Internet's next act, the impact of green technology, how to market to the entire planet, and upcoming digital disruptors.

See here and here.

iMeme: The Thinkers of Tech

An investor wants to give you money for a certain percentage of your startup. Should you take it? You're about to hire your first employee. How much stock should you give him?

These are some of the hardest questions founders face.

The Equity Equation

Viewpoints.com, a new ratings and reviews Web site that draws upon personal experiences of its user community to help consumers make smarter more informed purchase decisions, today announced its first board of advisors. The highly accomplished group of media and technology veterans, each an authority in his or her field, together cover the spectrum of technologies and disciplines essential to the Viewpoints.com concept.

Viewpoints - Let's review.

The New York Times' subscription-only online service TimesSelect could be nearing its end ... insiders say a growing chorus of people within the paper are lobbying to shut down the two-year-old service ...

Times May Pull Plug on Pay Site