by Brooks Mendell | May 19, 2019 | Forestry, Learning, Thinking/Analysis
My work as a researcher in forestry sometimes highlights ideas relevant to developing plans or managing risk in other industries. For example, it helps to have a simple screening and ranking process. Without a structured approach to ordering the world, the world...
by Brooks Mendell | Nov 7, 2017 | Learning, Thinking/Analysis
Quarterly financial statements and annual company reports are the language of investors and executives. At the end of the day, the results of managerial business and capital allocation decisions get translated through audited financial statements, which, like haikus...
by Brooks Mendell | Oct 21, 2017 | Forestry, Thinking/Analysis
Professor Richard Thaler won this year’s Nobel Prize for Economics, in part, for research confirming that we (humans) believe we are smarter and more rational than we actually are. Asked how he plans to spend the $1.1 million prize money, Thaler replied, “I will try...
by Brooks Mendell | Mar 8, 2017 | Forestry, Thinking/Analysis
In 1990, Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel Kahneman and two colleagues published a study documenting how we can “overvalue” things we already own (D. Kahneman, J. Knetsch and R. Thaler, “Experimental Tests of the Endowment Effect and the Coase Theorem,” The Journal...
by Brooks Mendell | Jan 9, 2017 | Forestry, Thinking/Analysis
Understand how to understand and frame the current situation. [That was not a Rumsfeldian typo.] Executives and investors make, or don’t make, decisions on how to allocate capital and other resources based on their understanding of the current situation. On average,...
by Brooks Mendell | Sep 7, 2016 | Learning, Thinking/Analysis
You are an Analyst, a warrior shrouded in mystery and feared for your ruthlessness with Excel. Your actions can throw Board meetings into chaos, and your existence will shape the company during this pivotal moment in history. [Inspired by the Assassin’s Creed] Finance...
