We live in a time of information abundance, which far too many of us see as information overload. With the sum total of human knowledge, past and present, at our fingertips, we’re faced with a crisis of attention: which ideas should we engage with, and why? Big Think is an evolving roadmap to the best thinking on the planet — the ideas that can help you think flexibly and act decisively in a multivariate world.
A word about Big Ideas and Themes — The architecture of Big Think
Big ideas are lenses for envisioning the future. Every article and video on bigthink.com and on our learning platforms is based on an emerging “big idea” that is significant, widely relevant, and actionable. We’re sifting the noise for the questions and insights that have the power to change all of our lives, for decades to come. For example, reverse-engineering is a big idea in that the concept is increasingly useful across multiple disciplines, from education to nanotechnology.
Themes are the seven broad umbrellas under which we organize the hundreds of big ideas that populate Big Think. They include New World Order, Earth and Beyond, 21st Century Living, Going Mental, Extreme Biology, Power and Influence, and Inventing the Future.
Browse videos featuring experts across a wide range of disciplines, from personal health to business leadership to neuroscience.
Big Think’s contributors offer expert analysis of the big ideas behind the news.
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What's the Big Idea? What's the essential value of an employee benefit? Protection from a catastrophic loss is an important one. That loss could come in the form of a large hospital bill, for instance, and that is why health insurance is seen as a key benefit. Due to the shift from a "defined ...
What's the Big Idea? Love your best friend? Good. Chances are you’re unconsciously emulating her. As humans, we all engage in mimicry, says Harvard physician and sociologist Nicholas Christakis, and we usually copy the people to whom we are most connected. Watch the interview: ...
What's the Big Idea? When it comes to making choices about benefits, keep it simple, says Bruce Finley, Senior Partner and the Director of Global Workplace Communication at Mercer -- and calculate, calculate, calculate. If we're willing to do the math and put the time in to making informed ...
What's the Big Idea? Ernest Hemingway once said, "Retirement is the ugliest word in the language." Maybe that's true, but it's getting considerably sweeter thanks to the unprecedented benefits packages on offer from today's most competitive employers. The global race to attract and retain ...
What’s the Big Idea? The 2006 Pension Protection Act did exactly what its name implies – it protected employee pensions by penalizing companies that underfunded their pension plans. It offered employers some positive incentive, too, by raising the cap on the tax-deductable amount they could ...
What's the Big Idea? Your colleague asks whether you agree with her perspective on a key issue, forcing you to take sides. Your six-year-old throws a fit just before bedtime, demanding to stay up later. Your partner will do the dishes, but only after you've taken out the trash. Human beings ...
What's the Big Idea? The backbone of every organization is its people. We know this to be true. Workers are the fundamental source of productivity and the drivers of innovation, especially in the knowledge economy. Happy workers save employers crucial time, money, and energy by being actively ...
What’s the Big Idea? In the end, it’s not the vision that makes the business – it’s the people. Yet the hiring and managing of employees is the achilles heel of many an otherwise tightly-run organization. Why? Because human beings come with many more variables than do widgets – we’re trickier ...
What's the Big Idea? Why does it feel better to be paid hourly than to receive a salary? Why are we willing to gamble, even when we know there's a house advantage? Why would anyone buy stock in Blockbuster or Borders? (Respected financier Bill Ackman owned 10.6 million shares of the latter on ...
What's the Big Idea? The paradox of hiring during times of economic hardship is that even when unemployment is high, even when businesses have a vast pool of potential hires from which to recruit, good talent is hard to find -- and harder to keep. The problem is not about a lack of ...
We're getting older. Not just as individuals, and not just as a country, but as a world. A census report projects that between 2010 and 2050, the US will face a rapid growth in its older population. Over the next four decades, the number of Americans aged 65 and older will be more than double ...
What's the Big Idea? Unless you are a government or a major monopoly there are very few markets your company can control. Human capital is a notable exception. And yet, even though workforce expenditures tend to be the largest investments that a company makes, this is an area that many ...
What’s the Big Idea? Employees in this economy lucky enough to have good benefit packages may have noticed that figuring out your options can be something of a full-time job in itself. Should I go with the Platinum Fantastica medical package with the $500 deductible and out-of-network coverage ...
What's the Big Idea? Scalability in business is not just about being able to distribute products and services efficiently to as many people as possible. It’s also about the DNA of the business itself – its ability to remain lithe and innovative no matter how large it grows. In a ...
What is the Big Idea? Ford and General Motors might be setting the new standard for U.S. companies when it comes to managing pension obligations. G.M. reduced its pension liabilities by $26 billion earlier this month by offering lump-sum payments to thousands of retired white collar employees to ...