What are heuristics?
What is a heuristic? Heuristics = Mental Rules of Thumb = Automatic Thinking There are many names for heuristics. Unfortunately they are often academic, complicated and don’t make understanding the concept any easier. Often they make it harder. The good news is that heuristics are in fact very simple to understand, they are basically...
When is marketing ROI a bad thing?
ROI is a way to seem more scientific, to keep the accountants at bay, to ensure that bosses are given metrics. They can also lead you away from your consumers. Buyer behavior studies tell us that consumers are brand agnostic, brand polygamous and usage unreliable. Buyers can be heavy users of a category one year or quarter and low users the...
Don’t be in the dark about misbehavior
Human beings can be a devious lot. At some point, even the most moral of us have skulked or sneaked or filched something we weren’t supposed to — even if it were just a cookie from the kitchen. Of all the things that get our sneakiness juices going, there is nothing like a little darkness. There has always been a correlation between...
Welcome
Hello and welcome to my site about how we choose, invest and communicate.
I have been fascinated by the area of decision science for more than twenty years. Without the man who once stood in front of me in a queue I might never have started my journey toward a fuller understanding of choice.
The man in question bought a lottery ticket, the kind where you let the machine choose the numbers. Well, he looked down at his ticket and saw it had the numbers 14 15 16 17 18 19 on it. He frowned, froze and I could see his mind was thinking things through. He then looked up at the teller and asked for his money back saying “there is no way I could ever win a lottery with numbers like this”. The teller took a look at the ticket and said “I’m sorry Sir, that’s never happened before” and proceeded to give the man his money back.
At first I was surprised that both of them would think that the ticket was no good, but then I imagined how I would have felt with his ticket in my hand. I had to admit that something about his ticket didn’t feel right.
Imagine yourself with the same ticket, would it feel like a winner? Probably not. The numbers don’t feel quite random enough somehow.
This little anecdote captures something that most of us intuitively know but rarely put into practice. We base many of our decisions on how we feel. How we feel can be influenced by cues and context. These are things we have evolved to do by our very nature, we are pre-programmed to act and respond in certain ways.
My education has involved degrees in psychology, international relations, management and behavioural economics. All with a focus on how people make decisions in different situations, whether it is negotiation, investment or communications. I have worked as a strategy consultant with top-tier firms and as an academic researcher at Oxford University. I have learned through study and practice what it is that we are all pre-programmed to do. I can now use the psychological keys needed to open doors to the mysterious world of choice and decision-making.
Since 2002 I have been applying my knowledge of behavioural economics by working as advisor, consultant and trainer to a range of corporate and public sector clients. Over the years I have worked with clients looking at how communications, marketing, organisational behaviour, leadership, influence, decision-making and risk management can be transformed for the better.
Why not get in touch and see how I could help you?
