--- title: "The100: Empathy maps, World Cup stats and Elias Thorne" description: "The100: Empathy maps, World Cup stats and Elias Thorne" image: https://hello.watchmethink.com/hubfs/The100%20Banners%20(1920%20x%201080%20px)%20(1)-2.png --- [![Bombayworks logotype](https://hello.watchmethink.com/hubfs/raw_assets/public/WatchMeThink_September_2023/images/wmt-logo_inverse.svg "Bombayworks logotype")](https://watchmethink.com/) - [What we do](https://watchmethink.com/#) - [Watch Me Explore](https://watchmethink.com/what-we-do/watch-me-explore) - [Watch Me Develop](https://watchmethink.com/what-we-do/watch-me-develop) - [Watch Me Use](https://watchmethink.com/what-we-do/watch-me-use) - [Watch Me Shop](https://watchmethink.com/what-we-do/watch-me-shop) - [Who it's for](https://watchmethink.com/#) - [Consumer Insights](https://watchmethink.com/who-its-for/consumer-insights) - [Shopper Insights](https://watchmethink.com/who-its-for/shopper-insights) - [Category Management](https://watchmethink.com/who-its-for/category-mangement) - [Innovation & Product Development](https://watchmethink.com/who-its-for/innovation) - [Sensory & Consumer Science](https://watchmethink.com/who-its-for/consumer-science) - [Packaging](https://watchmethink.com/who-its-for/packaging) - [Marketing](https://watchmethink.com/who-its-for/marketing) - [About](https://watchmethink.com/about) - [The 100 Blog](https://blog.watchmethink.com/) - [Contact](https://watchmethink.com/contact) - [Login](https://watchmethink.com/dashboard) - [Sign up](https://watchmethink.com/#) - [Corporate users](https://watchmethink.com/account/register/client) - [Request registration here](https://watchmethink.com/account/register/client) - [Consumer](https://watchmethink.com/account/register/contributor) - [Get paid to review products](https://watchmethink.com/account/register/contributor) Menu # The100: Empathy maps, World Cup stats and Elias Thorne - Home - [Blog](https://hello.watchmethink.com/blog) - The100: Empathy maps, World Cup stats and Elias Thorne - [Blog home /](https://hello.watchmethink.com/blog) [Fran](https://hello.watchmethink.com/blog/author/fran) 06/26/2026 [The100](https://hello.watchmethink.com/blog/tag/the100) [0 Comments](https://hello.watchmethink.com/blog/the100-empathy-maps-world-cup-stats-and-elias-thorne#postComment) 2 Minutes ## Clamber inside their head Next time you want to put yourself in someone else's shoes (and after you’ve given Watch Me Think a bell… obvs 🤪), try giving [XPLANE’s Empathy Map](https://xplane.com/the-empathy-map-a-human-centered-tool-for-understanding-how-your-audience-thinks/) a whirl. It’s a discovery and alignment tool to help think like your audience does, be that internally or externally. ![](https://hello.watchmethink.com/hs-fs/hubfs/undefined-1.png?width=1024&height=662&name=undefined-1.png) ## “Best practice wearing a strategy’s clothes” How can we get better at seeing what’s coming and deciding what to do about it? Step forth Jasmine Bina and [how to train your strategic instinct](https://conceptbureau.substack.com/p/how-to-train-your-strategic-instinct): *“teams arrive at things like “we’ll maximize the quality of our customer experience.” But who wouldn’t? That’s never a strategy, it’s a best practice wearing a strategy’s clothes \[...\] A real strategy has a viable opposite. That’s how you know you’ve got something specific - someone else could rationally do the reverse, and probably will. If the opposite of your strategy is unthinkable, you haven’t said anything.”* ## The curious case of Elias Thorne Ask one of the LLM big-dawgs to write you a story and ‘Elias the lighthouse keeper’ will appear in nearly two-thirds of them. Eh?! Why?! [From Antonia Davison:](https://www.ibm.com/think/news/why-every-ai-writes-the-same-story-elias-thorne) *“The Cornell paper hypothesizes that Elias himself traces back to WildChat, a dataset of 1 million real GPT-3.5 conversations that has been recycled into AI training sets \[...\] Models that trained on it copied the pattern, and developers building newer datasets used those models \[...\] Alignment training compounded the problem: by steering models away from copyrighted characters and adult content, developers inadvertently pushed them toward Elias, a placeholder character so inoffensive he barely existed in fiction before AI made him famous.”*   ## Data sciencing the World Cup Paul Thibodeau applying his [statistical sorcery to the World Cup](https://worldcupdata.substack.com/p/is-it-really-a-draw-heavy-world-cup) is my favourite thing since Google’s ‘did you mean to attach a document to this email?’ prompt. (Yes Google, yes I did.) A recent piece looks at whether this really is a draw heavy tournament, or if it just appears that way: *“To actually rule out the null \[...\] we would have needed to see not 13 draws but 15 \[...\] So yes, 13 draws in 39 matches is high. But it is not impossibly high. Even in a completely normal World Cup you would see a start this draw-heavy, or heavier, about one time in seven. That is the lesson worth carrying out of this: unusual is not the same as proven.”*   ## And finally… I’d thoroughly recommend a rummage through [the Manhoff Archive.](https://www.rferl.org/a/the-manhoff-archive/28359558.html) It’s a long-hidden collection of photos and videos taken by an American attaché during his time in Stalin’s Russia. Properly fascinating. [The 40 most rage-inducing problems in tech.](https://www.theringer.com/2026/05/28/tech/pope-leo-xiv-ai-encyclical-tech-industry-problems) Deep breaths, people. Deep breaths. How good are you [at mowing the lawn?](https://pudding.cool/2026/06/mow/game/) Fair warning that you're about to lose the next 15 minutes of your day. Sorry about that.   Bon weekend, *Fran*   --- #### Tag: [The100](https://hello.watchmethink.com/blog/tag/the100) #### Share: - [Follow us on Facebook](http://www.facebook.com/share.php?u=https://hello.watchmethink.com/blog/the100-empathy-maps-world-cup-stats-and-elias-thorne) - [Follow us on Twitter](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https://hello.watchmethink.com/blog/the100-empathy-maps-world-cup-stats-and-elias-thorne&text=The100:%20Empathy%20maps,%20World%20Cup%20stats%20and%20Elias%20Thorne) - [Follow us on Linkedin](http://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=true&url=https://hello.watchmethink.com/blog/the100-empathy-maps-world-cup-stats-and-elias-thorne) - [Follow us on Pinterest](http://pinterest.com/pin/create/button/?url=https://hello.watchmethink.com/blog/the100-empathy-maps-world-cup-stats-and-elias-thorne&text=The100:%20Empathy%20maps,%20World%20Cup%20stats%20and%20Elias%20Thornedescription=Clamber%20inside%20their%20head%20Next%20time%20you%20want%20to%20put%20yourself%20in%20someone%20else's%20shoes%20(and%20after%20you’ve%20given%20Watch%20Me%20Think%20a%20bell…%20obvs%20🤪),%20try%20giving[...]&media=https://3461170.fs1.hubspotusercontent-na1.net/hubfs/3461170/The100%20Banners%20%281920%20x%201080%20px%29%20%281%29-2.png) --- --- ## From the archives If you like The100, maybe even found it vaguely enjoyable (steady now), you can have a ganders at our previous issues. 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