It is with some quiet satisfaction I report that a Japanese study (admittedly sponsored by Yamaha) led by the nueroscientist behind Nintendo DS Brain Training, Ryuta Kawashima, has tested a number of middle aged men who after returning to motorcycling saw improvements in memory, information processing and concentration functions.
The riders said they made fewer mistakes at work and felt happier.
Kawashima said “Our final conclusion is that riding motorcycles can lead to smart ageing.” So can I get some tax breaks on my health plan that involves more motorcycling?
Also in the comments on Hell for Leather- “you don’t stop riding because you get old, you get old because you stop riding”
and another cafe racer image for the fans out there – Ala Verda - Norton Commando engine, Laverda frame:
Just a quick redirect to an article by Kevin Kelly (not the guy from Long Now, Wired, etc) in Forbes about risk and innovation, which has been a topic I have spent a lot of time on this week. Apart from the references to our old friend Daniel Kahneman (see 18 previous posts) Kelly makes some valid but perhaps a bit general points on the balance between risk and innovation – one bank executive’s innovation is another civil engineers risk, as I might have said to Rod earlier this week.
Kelly says “Everyone is taking, if anything, too little risk.” well yes, but lets explore that…while the points he makes about framing and emotion reflect Tversky and Kahneman, its still a stretch in the current economic situation to feel that corporate risk taking will save the day. Or maybe I misread it – if so I blame the last glass of red wine. I did, however, like this bit:
“How can you as a leader instill a culture that makes your employees wisely embrace risk and figure out new ways to build revenues? Here are three suggestions: (1) Ensure employees see unanimity across the senior team about the firm’s priorities; (2) encourage mistakes. “If you fail, try again. Fail again. Fail better,” said the playwright Samuel Beckett (we can learn a lot from the creative process); (3) make collaboration desirable. Complex problems require collaborative solutions. Where leaders fail to persuade their people to collaborate, ambiguity and competitiveness rush to fill the vacuum.”
From the Digital Life, Design 2009 conference I found this video of a discussion with Daniel Kahneman (2002 Nobel Prize winner in Economic Sciences) and Nassim Nicholas Taleb (author of “Fooled by Randomness” and ”The Black Swan”). In “Reflections on a Crisis” they explore how economic behaviours, bias and risk taking got us to where we are in the global recession and how counter-intuitive actions may help us recover.
DLD is not a conference that I was too aware of until recently, but with the benefit of offering all their sessions on video we can all get the benefits without a trip to Munich (although I may be making the case for a ticket to next years event!). Other speakers videos this year well worth watching include Dan Airely (of course!), David Weinberger “Knowledge in the Age of Abundance” , Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook growth and where next and a panel on Internet Politics in the age of the first “Internet President”.
Avoiding work constructively and so enjoyed some old clips from Yoram Bauman, PHD and the self styled world’s first “standup economist”- although a little theoretical knowledge might help in crossing over the humour barrier for mere mortals (or neo Keynesians).
Recent gigs at Chartered Financial Analyists local meetings… World tour promised, the LSE should book him now.
He was also on PBS today (which why I checked out his YouTube back catalogue, in a long tail sort of way) and in a relatively straight interview, surprise, surprise, he got asked about the recession – almost missed the reference to Black Swans, though.
Are there trustworthy analytics/metrics for measuring “influence”? In the web 2.0 world we count hits on the blog, friends on Facebook, Twitter stats, etc.
According to Twinfluence I have a Twitter rank of #8,862 and:
Velocity: 1,020 second-order followers/day
Social Capital: 56,171.6 +10.6 Very High
Centralization: 55.50% / -0.5 Average – Fragile
To understand this read a “Web Analytics Demystified” blogpost from Eric Peterson here - in truth it means I am selective who I follow and who I allow to follow me – the figures can be manipulated…
He also talks about the Twitter ratio - mine is less than 1.0, pretty normal:
“A ratio of less than 1.0 indicates that you are seeking knowledge (and Twitter Friends), but not getting much Twitter Love in return.
A ratio of around 1.0 means you are respected among your peers. Either that or you follow your Mom and she follows you.
A ratio of 2.0 or above shows that you are a popular person and people want to hear what you have to say. You might be a thought leader in your community.
A ratio 10 or higher indicates that you’re either a Rock Star in your field or you are an elitist and you cannot be bothered by Twitter’s mindless chatter. You like to hear yourself talk. Luckily others like to hear you talk, too. You may be an ass. “
If I start using social media to get my my “numbers” up – on whatever media – is that building a brand or ego bombing your constituency? Peterson says:
“Hey, the two things I spend the most time on in Twitter is trying to find great people to follow and trying to share interesting ideas.”
Same here, although because the UK hasn’t got Twitter into the mainstream yet ( and certainly not non IT folk) I am not surprised that it is less effective in getting conversations going.
To come back to the original question web analytics are good on numbers (and can be gamed), but understanding influence in the wider sense (how to achieve behaviour change) is more than a numbers game (sorry).
Imagine the scene – you get Dan Kahneman, Richard Thaler, Sendhil Mullainathan in a room in California to deliver a master class on behavourial economics, courtesy of Edge. In the audience you have Jeff Bezos, Nathan Myhrvold, Danny Hillis, Ev Williams, George Dyson and other A listers.
6 sessions, with videos and text, plus Q&A. As an example – session 1 – Thaler’s Nudge theory, choice architecture and “libertarian paternalism” are explored – interesting that he was going to call his book “Everything Matters”. I like the phrase “one click paternalism” as well if not the possible negative outcome. Maybe we can get the opt out choice architecture right on our company car share scheme.
While its not an instant fix – behavioral econ rarely is – its worth the investment in time to get up to speed on the basics.
BTW The use of the Enron film title is just me being ironic…
Working my way through this years “Pop!Casts” from Pop!Tech I settled down for the Malcolm Gladwell show. The premise of his new book, Outliers, leaves me a little underwhelmed – “so what” comes to mind – and I know that there has been some cultural critics who have argued that we have seen diminishing returns from Tipping Point to Blink to Outliers.
I haven’t read it yet so will reserve judgement, but as bloggers take plenty of credit for compiling other sources of information and thought surely it would be a bit wrong to characterise Gladwell as just a pop sociologist, reading the difficult books so you don’t have to?
David Cushman, author of the “Power of the Network”, questions the role and usefulness of the focus group in his blog, Faster Future . Although the Scoble example is appropriate in a web/Twitter context it is David’s “Communities of Purpose” proposition, which ties in with some of the new thinking we are pushing in travel behaviour change, that is causing us to review the theories that back our work.
Key criteria for the communities of purpose in the example related in the blog:
The community self organized around something they care about.
The real community of purpose here, the real creators of value, were the ones who cared enough about the purpose to drop everything in real time, right now.
Some of the blog comments note that the focus group is hardly dead and a collaborative approach to harnessing knowledge and enthusiasm may work better when the promoter is well known.
David has been promoting the idea of self-forming collaborative communities of interest and purpose for some time and has challenged some very established ideas about network behaviours. Some more deep reading is required to see what practical explanations can be pulled from this work, but I thought I would link to it early and analyse later.
The New York Times adds its voice to the emerging acceptance of behavioural elements in economics and markets generally, in an op-ed by David Brooks. Lots of good lines-
“”My sense is that this financial crisis is going to amount to a coming-out party for behavioral economists and others who are bringing sophisticated psychology to the realm of public policy. At least these folks have plausible explanations for why so many people could have been so gigantically wrong about the risks they were taking.”
“So perhaps this will be the moment when we alter our view of decision-making. Perhaps this will be the moment when we shift our focus from step three, rational calculation, to step one, perception.”
The writer’s comment that “choice architecture”, as per Richard Thaler’s Nudge theory, will only work in limited cases echoes my own views, but if markets and governments fail to influence the decision making process then what? back to the individuals non rational decision making again…
And with halloween approaching read how the Vancouver Sun charcaterises current markets as Motivated by Fear, with yet another mainstream introduction to neuroeconomics – also on BBC Radio 4 yesterday -“Money on the Brain”
Somethings happening in this area when the big guys start to pay attention.
Mark Earls blogs on his own site and the Marketing Society site, yet again hitting several topical nails on their heads. Read the full blogpost here, but I can’t help myself in picking a choice quote:
“To be honest, copying is much more important than independent thinking to shaping human behaviour and is much more common: as Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahnemann puts it, humans are to independent thought as cats are to swimming. We can do it if we really want to but will avoid it like the plague if we can…”
With the reference to BrettConsult’s favourite behavioural economist how can he go wrong?
In related news my new model for travel behaviour change is getting some attention (virally, of course) and another article beckons. My paper for European Transport Conference has been published and a copy is available here – aet-paper-081006. As always some feedback would be welcome.
