Signals

Discover the trends shaping our world, and explore the data underlying them, in this fascinating, visual journey. In Signals, Visual Capitalist founder and editor-in-chief Jeff Desjardins and his team explore the 27 most important trends shaping the future of our global economy. This striking book draws on the oceans of data we're all surrounded by to extract insights about where we are and where we are headed—from society and demographics to the environment, digital tech, the markets, and more. It also includes: Infographics, charts, and other data visualizations that identify signals hiding in the data Discussions about the impact trends are having on the world around us A full bibliography with references to the data sourced by the author Signals is a must-read for entrepreneurs, executives, policymakers, and regulators—or simply, anyone seeking to navigate a complex world.

Joel Rothschild and his friend Albert, both HIV positive, made a pact: whoever died first would attempt to "signal" the other from beyond. Joel wasn't sure he believed in psychic abilities, but from the day Albert died he began receiving messages. One message led Joel to a note Albert had left for him before he died. Another message told Joel to hang in there when he became sick, that he would get well - and he did.Albert's messages have changed not only Joel's life but the lives of many others who have been helped by messages Joel has delivered to them. Their stories and Joel's psychic awakening - a transformation from cynic to believer - are both amazing and reassuring.

SIGNALS is the story of the world economy, told in the language of everyday objects, places and events - from magazine covers and supermarkets to public protests. Pippa Malmgren argues that by being alert to the many signals around us, we can be empowered to deal with the varied troubles and treasures the world economy inevitably brings. Economics is not just maths and data. Perfume and makeup are part of the world economy too. Signals will help you understand why the size of chocolate bars, steaks and apartments are shrinking. It explains why the government says we face deflation yet everyone feels their cost of living is rising and their standard of living is falling. Rising protein prices are felt not just during your weekly shop but by the leaders of emerging markets who are obliged to reach for food and energy assets to feed their people. The increasing near misses between America's spy planes and the fighter jets of China and Russia are no coincidence. Malmgren reveals how our daily lives are affected by the ongoing battle, created by central bankers, between inflation and deflation. The fallout of this battle is evident in the rise of anti-establishment voting, the return of social unrest to emerging markets, the movement of manufacturing jobs back to the West, and by pressure from mass immigration. Economic forces are breaking the social contract between citizens and their states. If the only real solution is innovation, then the key question becomes whether governments are hostile or hospitable to efforts to build tomorrow's economy today. Malmgren shows us who is already building the future and how to be part of it. With its wonderful range of examples, from a Vogue magazine cover to a protest by a Tibetan monk, Signals demonstrates that although we can't predict the future of the world economy, we can better prepare ourselves for it. Far from being the concern of only a privileged few, Malmgren shows that economics is a hot topic that touches every life.

How understanding the signaling within social networks can change the way we make decisions, work with others, and manage organizations. How can you know when someone is bluffing? Paying attention? Genuinely interested? The answer, writes Alex Pentland in Honest Signals, is that subtle patterns in how we interact with other people reveal our attitudes toward them. These unconscious social signals are not just a back channel or a complement to our conscious language; they form a separate communication network. Biologically based “honest signaling,” evolved from ancient primate signaling mechanisms, offers an unmatched window into our intentions, goals, and values. If we understand this ancient channel of communication, Pentland claims, we can accurately predict the outcomes of situations ranging from job interviews to first dates. Pentland, an MIT professor, has used a specially designed digital sensor worn like an ID badge—a “sociometer”—to monitor and analyze the back-and-forth patterns of signaling among groups of people. He and his researchers found that this second channel of communication, revolving not around words but around social relations, profoundly influences major decisions in our lives—even though we are largely unaware of it. Pentland presents the scientific background necessary for understanding this form of communication, applies it to examples of group behavior in real organizations, and shows how by “reading” our social networks we can become more successful at pitching an idea, getting a job, or closing a deal. Using this “network intelligence” theory of social signaling, Pentland describes how we can harness the intelligence of our social network to become better managers, workers, and communicators.

First demonstrated in 1928, color television remained little more than a novelty for decades as the industry struggled with the considerable technical, regulatory, commercial, and cultural complications posed by the medium. Only fully adopted by all three networks in the 1960s, color television was imagined as a new way of seeing that was distinct from both monochrome television and other forms of color media. It also inspired compelling popular, scientific, and industry conversations about the use and meaning of color and its effects on emotions, vision, and desire. In Bright Signals Susan Murray traces these wide-ranging debates within and beyond the television industry, positioning the story of color television, which was replete with false starts, failure, and ingenuity, as central to the broader history of twentieth-century visual culture. In so doing, she shows how color television disrupted and reframed the very idea of television while it simultaneously revealed the tensions about technology's relationship to consumerism, human sight, and the natural world.

A widely celebrated novelist gives us a generous collection of exhilarating short stories, proving that he is a master of this genre as well. Once again, "he reminds us," wrote The Miami Herald, "that great writing is a timeless art." After the stunning historical novels The Clearing and The Missing, Tim Gautreaux now ranges freely through contemporary life with twelve new stories and eight from previous collections. Most are set in his beloved Louisiana, many hard by or on the Mississippi River, others in North Carolina and even in midwinter Minnesota. But generally it's heat, humidity, and bugs that beset his people as they wrestle with affairs of the heart, matters of faith, and the pros and cons of tight-knit communities--a remarkable cast of characters, primarily of the working class, proud and knowledgeable about the natural or mechanical world, their lives marked by a prized stereo or a magical sewing machine retrieved from a locked safe, boats and card games and casinos, grandparents and grandchildren and those in between, their experiences leading them to the ridiculous or the scarifying or the sublime; most of them striving for what's right and good, others tearing off in the opposite direction.

Brian Skyrms offers a fascinating demonstration of how fundamental signals are to our world. He uses various scientific tools to investigate how meaning and communication develop. Signals operate in networks of senders and receivers at all levels of life, transmitting and processing information. That is how humans and animals think and interact.