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Douglas Hannah

@buildit.bsky.social
735 followers 885 following 257 posts

Prof @ University of Illinois Gies College of Business. I like making things, and I study how people make things. #entrepreneurship #strategy #ecosystems #cognition

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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
In high school, a friend and I produced a 10min VHS exploring Joseph Campbell’s monomyth. It was the jankiest, most cringeworthy video ever (we wrote the credits on the fridge in mustard). Fascinating to think that type of content might return as an honest signal of effort given these tools.
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
This will never not be an amazing office.
Picture of a laptop open on an airplane tray table; in the window there is blue sky and the horizon line, with clouds and the distant earth below
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
While I can't wait to read this new collection, I'm still recovering from @kyliu99.bsky.social's "State Change" so it may take some time
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John Bistline @bistline.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Cool new research on 167 U.S. cities: Uber and Lyft entry raised regional GDP per capita by ~2.9% and boosted unstable/gig-style employment by ~3.7%. Effects on total jobs and total earnings? Statistically indistinguishable from zero.
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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
Study finds women employees more likely to build friendships through existing connections, creating larger networks. Men developed selective friendships. Female friendship networks contribute more to org stability; male friendships more focused on individual benefit. phys.org/news/2026-08...
phys.org
Study finds women build strong workplace friendships than men
Women are more likely to form close-knit friendship groups at work, a Durham University Business School study suggests. The findings are published in the journal Social Networks.
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
On our way back from a faculty event. Do we caulk the wagons and float?
A black car stopped on a country road in central Illinois; the road is flooded out due to recent rain. On the far side, three people walk towards the water, possibly carrying a stand up paddle board
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 16/08/2026
Ha, checkmate, I got imposter syndrome. (Also turducken, triathlete, skanky, and immersion blender)
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 15/08/2026
Throwback to the most intense classroom I've ever presented in; seen here *from the street level windows* that allow passersby to watch the presenter beset from all sides in the middle of the ring @Bocconi
A view from above of a round classroom, consisting of concentric 360 degree rings of seats around a space for a presenter to stand
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 12/08/2026
This is fantastic, and a key issue in #mgmt and #orgstudies as well. With enough variables we can lead our models to any output, so more moving parts frequently leads to less insight (as we wrote about here: sms.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...)
sms.onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Analytic models in strategy, organizations, and management research: A guide for consumers
Research summary Analytic models are a powerful approach for developing theory, yet are often poorly understood in the strategy and organizations community. Our goal is to enhance the influence of t...
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 03/08/2026
This is a well done reflection. Business models and investment both have gravity; in this case, the gravity of the investment they’ve taken works against the gravity of their business model
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 31/07/2026
Very cool analysis of the Maine 70.3 Half Ironman men’s finishing times last weekend (assembled by a friend). Note that the pool of competitors in each age bracket gets smaller as ages go up, but the finishing times really don’t change much!
A box and whisker plot of mens finishing times at the Maine 70.3 half Ironman. Median times are fairly consistent in the 18-44 range, with some of the older competitors displaying faster times than much younger athletes A stacked distribution plot of mens finishing times at the Maine 70.3 half Ironman. Median times are fairly consistent in the 18-44 range, with some of the older competitors displaying faster times than much younger athletes
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 30/07/2026
If you’re in Philly early for #AOM2026 and looking for something to go, I highly recommend touring the US Mint. Great exhibit design, see the machines in action, quick visit. www.usmint.gov/about/tours-...
usmint.gov
Philadelphia Mint
The Philadelphia Mint produces circulating, commemorative, and precious metal coins; medals; and manufactures the Mint's dies. Learn more about this facility.
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
Seems like a good time to remind folks that even if you are safe from fires, breathing smoke is, like, really bad. A DIY air filter can help. #wildfire #pacificpalisades #crbox
theconversation.com
How a nondescript box has been saving lives during the pandemic – and revealing the power of grassroots innovation
3D printers got a lot of attention when DIYers leapt to action to address equipment shortages early in the pandemic, but some everyday items found in hardware stores played a big role, too.
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 22/07/2026
Oh my gosh, I love everything about this: the concept, the community, the Risky Business homage www.news-gazette.com/business/ent... h/t @ecourtem.bsky.social
news-gazette.com
Champaign bookstore buys house to offer events, retreats
Jenny Shima, owner of The Literary, is converting a historic Champaign home into a space for weekend reading retreats and other events. She hopes to have the first booking available
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Ben Spigel @benspigel.bsky.social · 01/07/2026
New paper alert! Learning to grow in entrepreneurial ecosystems. entrepreneurs learn about entrepreneurship from other entrepreneurs. Not from accelerators, not from textbooks, not from their very handsome entrepreneurship professors — from each other. 🧵 1/7 link.springer.com/article/10.1...
link.springer.com
Learning to grow in entrepreneurial ecosystems - Small Business Economics
The entrepreneurial ecosystems literature lacks a clear explanation for how ecosystems influence firm growth. To address this gap, this paper examines learning as a way to link the structure of ecosys...
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David Buchanan @retr0.id · 24/11/2025
"writing code to solve a problem" used to have "understanding the problem" as a prerequisite. but vibecoding allows solution-shaped objects to be produced without any of the hard-won understanding. beware of solution-shaped objects.
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
ok, yeah, in retrospect not an ideal bookmark to be using, in the courthouse, while waiting in the jury pool
A picture of a yellow and green bookmark that reads “honk if you love crime” sitting on the open pages of a book
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
“Some things need to become enormous to survive. Other things survive because they never needed to become enormous.”
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 22/05/2026
Wonderful piece by Donna Harris on pitch competitions in entrepreneurship: They reward the wrong things, but we just can't quit them (h/t to @vanishingcorp.bsky.social) buildersfieldguide.substack.com/p/breeding-c...
buildersfieldguide.substack.com
Breeding Cobras or Building Companies?
Pitch competitions dominate entrepreneurship. There's almost no evidence they help founders build durable companies.
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Christopher Mims @mims.bsky.social · 21/05/2026
I think it's under-appreciated how much user-hostile recipe sites and news articles smothered in pop-ups and video ads have negatively polarized the average normie against the open web, and helped to drive adoption of AI as an alternative way to get basic information
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Seva @seva.bsky.social · 20/05/2026
re-upping this in light of the very amusing Granta fiasco
hegemon.substack.com
The Easy Promise of Hidden Revelations
Don't blame LLMs. We have always wanted slop.
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
I've never liked the phrase "kill your babies" as a piece of writing advice, but oooof, it sure does hurt to watch paragraphs that took days to craft end up on the cutting room floor
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Sure the world is in tatters and gas is $75/gallon but I just bought four Brother ink cartridges for $25, for a 10 year old printer that's still going strong?
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 18/05/2026
Sharing a good friend's Kickstarter. Erin is a designer and illustrator; her book Girl Math is gorgeous and offers accessible advice to folks (esp. young women) who weren't taught about or feel overwhelmed by personal finances. www.kickstarter.com/projects/eri...
kickstarter.com
Girl Math: Claiming our Freedom & Redefining Abundance
Help me print & distribute this super cute guide to money & mindset for women who don’t know what they don’t know. Let’s change lives!
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 15/05/2026
Watching “Chef” starring Jon Favreau has led me, inevitably, back to the greatest restaurant review of all time www.everywhereist.com/2021/12/bros...
everywhereist.com
Bros., Lecce: We Eat at The Worst Michelin Starred Restaurant, Ever
There is something to be said about a truly disastrous meal, a meal forever indelible in your memory because it’s so uniquely bad, it can only be deemed an achievement. The sort of meal where everyone...
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Nicholas A. Christakis @nachristakis.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
A female experimenter, appearing pregnant, boarded the train with an observer. In the experimental condition, an additional experimenter dressed as Batman entered from another door. Passengers were significantly more likely to offer their seat when Batman was present (67.21% vs. 37.66%).
nature.com
Unexpected events and prosocial behavior: the Batman effect - npj Mental Health Research
npj Mental Health Research - Unexpected events and prosocial behavior: the Batman effect
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 10/05/2026
My mother spent much of her career as a florist, which made Mother’s Day a mixed bag for her (looong days and too much work). So this year when my 6yo and I made paper flowers with the tagline, “no florists were harmed in the making of this arrangement” 😜
A vase of large, colorful paper flowers with wooden stems, set in a vase
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 08/05/2026
A gorgeous, quiet grey day in @giesbusiness.bsky.social during oops-no-finals week. #illini
Lobby of the Gies College of Business, with a cloudy day and many empty tables
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 06/05/2026
Rereading Edward Abbey’s “Down the River” to prep for a float trip at the end of the month, and delighted to find a perfect start to the preface: “For me, this floating began near home…my brother Hoots and I built a boat. To be honest, we didn’t build it, we stole it. Nor was it exactly a boat.”
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
"That's kind of a wild thing," said one man at South Station. "I think the researchers might be a little bored over at UCLA."
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Dominika Noworolska @dominikanow.bsky.social · 04/05/2026
One underappreciated value of coding your own interviews from transcripts by hand is the self-coaching potential it brings. It can be annoying & challenging, but really lays bare the potential bad habits & mistakes that you still make, no matter the level of experince. We all have our blindspots.
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
Big day today if anybody wants to pitch me an irresponsible investment or adventure
Fortune cookie fortune, which reads “trust the journey on a Tuesday; it is leading you to greatness”
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Amy Diehl, Ph.D. @amydiehl.bsky.social · 19/04/2026
Studies involving venture capital, pro sports, healthcare & entertainment find all-women groups face a collaboration penalty that solo women & all-men groups escape. All women groups seen as more threatening & more likely to challenge power structures. theconversation.com/why-women-in...
theconversation.com
Why women in groups face a ‘collaboration penalty’ that solo female stars like Taylor Swift and Coco Gauff escape
All-women groups, whether in sports, music or business, are consistently underpaid compared to men. They’re seen as more threatening to the status quo.
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 20/04/2026
Very odd to see Claude’s writing ticks show up in a print copy of the Economist (ironically, in an article about AI 🙄)
Photo of a print column in the Economist. Highlighted text reads “Together, these form the demand signal, and this might be the defining asst of the AI-mediated information ecosystem. Not clicks. Not time spent. Those attention-economy currencies lose their worth in this paradigm.”
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 18/04/2026
Turns out Indianapolis airport is ORD’s mirror twin. Connecting through O’Hare is like being a salmon going over a hydro dam; this is a meditation spa in comparison 🤣
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Millennial hustle culture
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Brendan Cantwell @cantb.bsky.social · 17/04/2026
Thinking more about the Yale report. Parts of it are thoughtful. But Yale wants to make what is essentially a structural problem a question of behavioral one.
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 15/04/2026
Fantastic panel on the role of agentic AI in research, hosted by @strategicmgmt.bsky.social and Sukhun Kang, with @mattbeane.bsky.social, Gwendolyn Lee, @cgartenberg99.bsky.social, @joshgans.bsky.social. Image from Claudine Gartenberg. It's a new world (with lots of unanswered questions).
A 2x2 graph showing which tasks are automatable (simple, routine), and which still need deep human engagement (novel, complex).
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
Hummingbirds shouldn't be allowed to migrate this way. They're too small. It's too far.
Color coded map of hummingbird migrations; with the birds appearing in Florida and Gulf states in early March, and northern/US Canada by early May.
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Deb Chachra @debcha.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
Also bear in mind that ‘entrepreneurship and small businesses’ also includes artists, designers, musicians, writers, and other independent creative folks — this is a huge, systemic *cultural* loss as well as an economic loss.
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 09/04/2026
“False certainty is dangerous; it rules out all possibilities but one and in essence surrenders to that imagined future.”
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 08/04/2026
I recently ended a six year (!!!) streak on Duolingo to try a language not available on the platform. I am definitely not going to miss being yelled at by a cartoon owl…but now playing with some of the alternatives, I also really appreciate how thoughtfully designed it is.
Duo, the owl mascot of Duolingo, looking angry at me for breaking my streakA weekly streak counter, showing my current streak length (2216 days)
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 04/04/2026
20 minutes till cameras! @bostonu.bsky.social #TEDxBU
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 01/04/2026
🚨 New paper alert! 🚨 "Navigating Pedagogical Dilemmas When Fields Are in Flux" w/ Siobhan O'Mahony (BU). #AcademicSky #Education 🧵
Abstract, title, and author information for "Navigating pedagogical dilemmas when fields are in flux", by Douglas Hannah at the University of Illinois and Siobhan O'Mahony at Boston University.
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Jason, ex Inferis @benedictsred.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
Nothing stopping us from changing “et al” to “and the fellas”
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 31/03/2026
Digging into research on the geography of venture capital, and I am reminded how much I love this finding by Dutta, Armanios, and Desai (2022): New bridges 🌉 (real, not metaphorical) lead to more, and more industry-spanning, startups! pubsonline.informs.org/doi/10.1287/...
Screenshot of the papertitle and abstract at the journal page: Beyond Spatial Proximity: The Impact of Enhanced Spatial Connectedness from New Bridges on Entrepreneurship, by Sunasir Dutta, Daniel Armanios, and Jaison Desai.
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Donovan Schaefer @feelingtheory.bsky.social · 29/03/2026
It brings me great pleasure to inform you the word "blurb" is named after a made-up woman named Belinda Blurb whose job is to tell everyone how great a book is
The word blurb was coined in 1906 by American humorist Gelett Burgess (1866–1951).[2] The October 1906 first edition of his short book Are You a Bromide? was presented in a limited edition to an annual trade association dinner. The custom at such events was to have a dust jacket promoting the work and with, as Burgess' publisher B. W. Huebsch described it, "the picture of a damsel—languishing, heroic, or coquettish—anyhow, a damsel on the jacket of every novel".

In this case, the jacket proclaimed "YES, this is a 'BLURB'!" and the picture was of a (fictitious) young woman "Miss Belinda Blurb" shown calling out, described as "in the act of blurbing." The name and term stuck for any publisher's contents on a book's back cover, even after the picture was dropped and only the text remained. The original Belinda Blurb
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 27/03/2026
Quiet Friday afternoon #UIUC #Illini
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 26/03/2026
I love this: things need not scale to merit investment. “When innovation begins with the realities of people and landscapes, rather than with the assumption that solutions must scale, different possibilities come into view.”
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Douglas Hannah @buildit.bsky.social · 24/03/2026
Day 1 in the studio under my belt! Up next: another 6 days of filming over the next month, two months of video editing and production, assignment design, and then the course goes live in July! Current enrollment: 65,000 😳
A backstage shot of a green screen film studio; the stage is empty waiting for the presenter to step upCables coiled and machines whirring on the producers desk. Only his hands are visible behind a giant monitorThe studio crew leaning back in their chairs, with the stage in the backgroundA silly mugshot of me in front of the green screen. I’m on TV!
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