ande macpherson

This read is in pole position for my book of the year - and let’s face it there’s not long for something to supplant it!

I’m not sure how much UK marketing activity there had been around the launch of the book but whatever there was passed me by. So I bought it on impulse at the airport. It was September and I had a quick work trip to Rome and was looking for something I could get through en route.

The title & the cover image (which appears to be different/better than the US one) drew me in enough to have a quick read of the back cover. I wouldn’t have thought that I would ever buy a book authored by a behavioural economist but I’m glad I did.

Dan Ariely makes and remakes the point chapter by chapter that we are not the rational decision makers of traditional economic theory. Helpfully, he has a lot of experiments to test and prove his theories. These span the themes of pricing, honesty, arousal and the cost of social norms. Rather than summarise some of these you’ll be better off just buyng and reading the book.

You can also get a taste for the Ariely way of thinking by going to his blog. Some good & topical posts on the subject can be found there - such as his recent one about whether the size of bankers bonuses increases the quality of their work.

There is also a great marketing lesson in here. Dan has embraced the social media world as a way of keeping the book & his way of thinking topical (as well as blog posts he had a number of short videos on youtube).

As they say - it’s all good baby. Maybe a Xmas present for the thinking woman’s crumpet…

Tagged as blogs, book, dan ariely, predicatably irrational, review, youtube + Categorized as radio & brands, social media