Thursday, July 07, 2005
Two podcasts I highly recommend
Doug Kaye's wonderful IT Conversations site has a couple of sparkling podcasts you'll enjoy. Less is more by psychologist Barry Schwartz proposes that the stress in our lives is due in large part to the profusion of choices that we have. Whether or not we choose to whip out the BlackBerry or our laptop during our son's baseball game isn't as important as the fact that we could do those things. We're stressed because we have so many options and we feel guilt and regret over the options we didn't chooose.
Schwartz maintains we need fewer choices in salad dressings (he counted 75 varieties at his local supermarket) and more in political parties. He cites wonderful examples of how consumers shut down in the face of too much choice and opt not to choose at all. It's thought-provoking, even if you don't agree with him (which I'm not sure I do).
Also, check out Human Nature by Malcolm Gladwell, the author of the fascinating Blink. It'll challenge your faith in market research by convincing you that people don't say what they really think and that their actions are often very different than their intentions. His dissection of the failure of New Coke is particularly interesting.
¶ 10:55 AM 
Schwartz maintains we need fewer choices in salad dressings (he counted 75 varieties at his local supermarket) and more in political parties. He cites wonderful examples of how consumers shut down in the face of too much choice and opt not to choose at all. It's thought-provoking, even if you don't agree with him (which I'm not sure I do).
Also, check out Human Nature by Malcolm Gladwell, the author of the fascinating Blink. It'll challenge your faith in market research by convincing you that people don't say what they really think and that their actions are often very different than their intentions. His dissection of the failure of New Coke is particularly interesting.
