Weekly Download 15.5

Here’s a recap of news and notes from around the Web that caught my attention over the past week or so.

I like Indian food, and now I have scientific evidence to explain why. Scientists have figured out what makes Indian food so delicious. You have to look at consumer price sensitivity to understand Why delicious Indian food is surprisingly unpopular in the U.S.

I have been hearing that data scientists are in high demand.  This past week at the Fusion CEO-CIO Symposium, the cry reached a crescendo. Really smart people with amazing backgrounds bring tremendous value by mining mind-boggling volumes of data to provide predictive analytics.

• On the Case at Mount Sinai, It’s Dr. Data (adapted from a soon-to-be released book) chronicles the work of an expert in the field and an amazing personal interest story at the same time.
• There is no shortage of data being generated across all business sectors. Just imagine what can be discovered from Disney’s $1 Billion Bet on a Magical Wristband.

Whether in architecture, product design, software design, or more generally, business. I firmly believe less but better is an effective strategy. Dieter Rams, the designer behind many of Braun’s most iconic product designs (among many things), outlines a handy 10 Principles of “Good Design”.

At a later date, I’ll  do a more complete review of Greg McKeowen’s book Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less, but for now, this article does a pretty good job of succinctly getting to the point.