Pixar — Purl

The video shows how an investment in human capital and diversity can provide significant increases in productivity. Allowing employees to express their individuality brings new thoughts and ideas to the group. Without diversity, the company was trending down, when they embraced the balls of yarn it was trending up. While it was easy to keep everyone and everything the same, the company was not making money. By investing in a more diverse workforce, they were able to become profitable and a much more favorable place to work. The opportunity costs are implied but they are that diversity can have real bottom line impacts. In addition, diversifying your workforce can make you an employer of choice and allow you to hire more highly skilled employees. Lastly, it shows that diversity allowed the male employees to be more free with who they were and thus helped the company become more successful.

I think this video applies to everyone from women to men. Introverts to extroverts, it shows the benefits of staying true to who you are. Additionally, it shows the benefits to companies by encouraging diversity.

Clip suggestion & description submitted by Keven Tarantino

2019 0

Russ Roberts — It’s a Wonderful Loaf

Russ Roberts spins a tale of a local bread market and wonders about the power of such a market. He hypothesizes the trouble that could occur if one person were given supreme power and became a bread czar. You can read the poem online as well, with commentary!

2019 0

TED-Ed — What Gives a Dollar Bill It’s Value?

This TedEd video looks at how money supply impacts the value of bills in the economy. As an animated illustrated, it does a great job working through the idea of fiat money and how inflation/deflation is controlled through the money supply.

2018 0

TED-ED: Why incompetent people think they’re amazing

The Dunning-Kruger effect is an interesting psychological theory that looks at why novices tend to overrate their abilities and even rate themselves on par with experts. This mindset has real implications for decision making because overconfidence made lead us to make suboptimal choices.

2018 0

National Science Foundation — Tragedy of the Commons

The tragedy of the commons are predictable outcomes when looking at grazing lanes, highways, fisheries, and forests. This quick video from the National Science Foundation is a short introduction to the issues that plague common resources. The ending portion of the video paints the tragedy in a much broader light by highlighting the growing need to preserve nature as populations continue to grow.

2018 0

TedEd — What is the tragedy of the commons

Here’s a great opening video for teaching common resources and the tragedy of the commons. This version of the video actually does a great job explaining the math of the overfishing problem and how you need to have enough reproductive pairs in order to maintain the optimal level of the stock. This video could be used a pre-lesson video to introduce the topic.

2018 0

TedEd: Hotelling Model

This animated clip illustrates the Hotelling Model well (even though they don’t mention it), but can also be used to introduce the idea of sequential moves.

2017 0

TedEd: Why do Americans and Canadians celebrate Labor Day?

In the United States and Canada, the first Monday of September is a federal holiday, Labor Day. Originally celebrated in New York City’s Union Square in 1882, Labor Day was organized by unions as a rare day of rest for the overworked during the Industrial Revolution. Kenneth C. Davis illustrates the history of Labor Day from Union Square to today.

2014 0