Irrational is probably not what you would care to be labelled as, and yet that is exactly what you are. Dan Ariely shows not only are you irrational, but you are predictably irrational.

How can this be so?

Well, many of the illogical decisions you make can be predicted in advance. For example, one of the illustrations in the book involves two samples of chocolate. One is a world famous exotic chocolate and the other is the recycled waste sold as chocolate in convenience stores.

The experiment began by selling the two chocolates side by side in small one bite sized samples. The price of the authentic chocolate experience was 15 cents and the price of the imitation chocolate was only 1 cent. An overwhelming majority of people confronted with this decision concluded that the exotic chocolate was a better buy.

However, once the price of both chocolate samples was dropped by 1 cent something strange happened. You could say it was entirely irrational. The price difference between the chocolates was exactly the same, but now the majority of people took the low quality chocolate.

What caused this switch when the price differential was exactly the same?

The low end chocolate had dropped from 1 cent to free. That magic word free had altered the equation, tipping the value balance away from the quality chocolate.

This is just one of the many cases where our irrational behaviour can be totally predictable. Advertisers are taking advantage of this knowledge all the time. Even when you think you know what the advertiser is doing, you may be surprised to find that he is doing something entirely different on your subconscious level.

This is a great book for anyone who markets anything, or even sets prices on supermarket stock. It is also a must have for anyone considering making a shopping excursion.

If you would like to help support this blog please purchase through this link.

Everyone loves the under dog.

The current Soccer World Cup is no exception. The host nation, South Africa, were the first home team to bow out before the second round in the history of the Cup. But they are heralded as heroes.

Why this heroic celebration of what others consider to be a failure? Because there were the under dogs. No one expected them to win. However, they went out and played with heart and enthusiasm. They gave their best.

New Zealand has now been adopted by many South Africans. They will be cheering for the team from down under because they too were never given a chance. Several of their team are not even full time soccer players, and many of the other teams are made up of professionals all earning million dollar cheques.

Will they win? Unlikely. But while they are still in there is always a chance. And in the mean time we will all celebrate each victory (and anything other than a loss is a victory when you are at the bottom of the table) as if we had won the cup.

We all like a victorious under dog story. Sylvester Stallone made a career out of playing this role in movies.

Why do we cheer the under dog so?

Because we all wish life had turned out a little differently?

Maybe we have given up the fight to achieve our dreams and would rather live vicariously through the actions of others.

Many a successful person is remembered for what they achieved, but we have forgotten the many failures that person went through to achieve what they did.

Don’t stop short when the next action you take could be the one that propelled you to achieve your dreams.

Success Isn’t An Accident. It Is A Culmination Of Failures
~ Dean McNamara

A quick look at the latest television commercial from Telecom advertising their XT Network.

This is an interesting marketing exercise. For those that don’t know, Telecom the once Government owned monopoly in phone services here in NZ launched a new network system recently. Since the phone networks have been opened up to competition (to some extent) Telecom has struggled to get ahead of the technology curve and the XT network was supposed to be the answer.

After spending a lot of money promoting the launch and signing up many customers with the launch specials the new network crashed. Not once, not twice, but numerous times (I lost count). Much of the country suddenly and without notice found they had no cellphone coverage for days at a time in some cases.

This leaves a lot of very unhappy customers and one Paul Reynolds CEO with egg on his face – especially when you consider the advertising that heralded his appointment to the company.

Originally I had an image here of the CEO Paul Reynolds on his appointment boasting a promise Telecom could not keep. Telecom have since decided that it is too embarrassing to have their archives online and no doubt hope that by removing them we will forget they used misleading (at best, I would assert false) advertising.

In an effort to regain the trust of a country Telecom runs another marketing campaign to announce the XT network is in fact now working. They chose none other than the CEO to front the marketing campaign.

The new ad shows Paul Reynolds, the charming Scotsman, trout fishing in a remote location. He praises New Zealanders for their “pick yourself up by the bootstrap” attitude, and suggest we should give Telecom another go. His phone then rings and he tries to answer it when “Buggar …” it appears to have dropped out again .. “only kiddin [cheeky grin].”

What they did right.

The used the CEO to front the campaign. He is after all a well known figure now.

What they got wrong.

It is all very well to admire our resilient attitude as Kiwis, but just because you kicked us in the guts with your swanky sales pitch and faulty system (not once, not twice, but several times) don’t expect us to give you another chance. Even if your handsome CEO smiles into the camera dressed in the latest in trout fishing attire.

As for the funny joke about the phone not working… now that was a serious flaw. They say good advertising should be controversial, but the person who scripted that ad should be looking for a new job.

There are many Kiwis who suffered direct hardship (custom lost, emergency calls unable to be connected) because Telecom’s state of the art network let them down. Now the CEO is on TV making a joke of the situation??!!

Ok.. one can see their intent. To appear personable and admit they screwed up “ha ha jokes on us.” But now they want to be taken serious again.

The perspective of one jaded Kiwi is that here is one overpaid Scotsman (making more just in bonuses than most people make in a lifetime) telling us he admires how he can kick us in the guts repeatedly and we keep getting up. Then he makes light of a situation caused a lot of stress and frustration in many people’s lives (and may even have cost the life of some) trying to be cute. The apology ends up being an insult.

Not the best marketing decision I have seen.

What do you think? Does it work for you?

When is a friend not a friend?

Maybe when you have had too much of a good thing …

Recent innovation in the Google search engine results is to tailor your search results to those people on line to whom you are most connected.

In other words Google has decided that your online friends, and your friends online friends, are probably interested in the same sorts of things that you are, so when you search for something you will probably want to know what your friends have to say about the matter.

The returned result will reflect something like what is happening the picture below (at least that is what the video from the official Google blog says).

That all sounds fantastic doesn’t it?

But if this is the way of the future, what will the future end up looking like?

As I see it there are two possible outcomes.
1) It works like they say it will.
2) It doesn’t work like they say it will.

I am not sure which will be more scary. If it works like they are trying to engineer it to work then the more time you spend online the more the results will be tailored to your tastes and that of your friends.

Can you imagine a world so boring?

You are trapped in a pattern of perpetual sameness. No matter what search term you plug into Google, Google is going to throw back at you results that reflect the browsing behavior of you and your friends. A little too much like inbreeding in my books, self centred at best.

Ok, so initially your social network results have been segregated, but they have been engineering the results to your own habits for some time. And I can understand what Google is trying to do. They are trying to save you scrolling through the results to find sites that might interest you, or sites that feature your friends who obviously interest you.

But sometimes I just like to be surprised!

Perhaps I am strange. Maybe no-one else has learned something new and interesting because of an odd result that came back when they searched for a term on a search engine.

Or how about the other alternative? What if it doesn’t work as they plan?

The more likely outcome, in the short term at least, is that we will be inundated with new “friends.” If the only way of getting your website promoted to new circles of influence is make friends with new people, then I can see those people who currently spam your comment box, your forum, your social profiles, and your email in-box suddenly wanting to become your best friend.

As it is I have a plethora of “friends” from various social sites whose only attempt at interaction with me was to add me as a friend. I am not sure about you, but I thought friendship was a little more than having your avatar displayed on someone else’s friend list. Why would you even bother to go the effort if you were never intending to at least say “hi.”

I guess time will tell if it “works” or not. But at this stage I’ll enjoy the few surprises I discover when doing searches, and I’ll continue to make the most of my relatively small friends list.

Has innovation died?

Time Magazine published an article “10 Ideas For The Next 10 Years” and number ten on that list made the statement that we have entered the “boring age.”

We think we are innovative because we now have phones integrated with web browsers and touch screens. But the article asks where is the innovation that invented the phone? Where is the innovation that invented the combustion engine?

Sure we are tweaking already existent technology, we have smart phones and more efficient engines. But we don’t drive flying spaceships and we don’t have vacations on the moon.

What we do have is oil slicks destroying large tracts of our oceans. We have more cool electronic gadgets that replace old clunky items that came from the past. But how much of this innovation is just filling in time. Much like the new social media craze online – people waste a lot of time on social network sites. Some even believe they are building a business. The reality is that they will be doing the same things 5 years from now, still believing they are building a business.Just as engineers believe all their gadgetry is innovative.

I think we are ready for some real innovation. Who knows it might create some jobs and economic growth.

source

We have a meet the teacher evening coming up next week for our primary school kids. After getting their second term reports we have no real reason to go, although we will anyway. It is good to know what the teachers are trying to accomplish.

The interesting thing about the reports is not so much the teacher’s assessment, they just tick the boxes to say average, above average, or not average. But it was the section where the kids got do their own assessment.

One of my daughters achieved a mostly average report from her teacher, and when it came to assessing herself she ticked mostly “achieving” boxes as well. The daughter is one of the oldest in her class because of they way school system works here (essentially holding her back 6 months instead of pushing her forward). So she is mostly above average in her class. But when it came to the self assessment she ticked all the “excelling” boxes. She has a high opinion of herself!

Combine these results with the book I am currently reading by Robert Kiyosaki:

I may make a few cents if you buy through the above link

Although it is 20 years old, few lessons have been learnt since the time it was written. The school system has become a little less results oriented (although I am not entirely sure I agree that this is actually better for most students), but they still do not teach a child that they can achieve anything they can dream.

I will be interested to see if my optimistic daughter still believes she is “excelling” in all areas as she moves through the school system.

I hope I can teach my children what the school system failed to teach me. And I hope they can learn it at a much earlier age than I learnt it.

What about you?

Have you educated yourself so that you can educate your children in a way that they might have a chance of retiring independent of the Government? Or so they might achieve any of their dreams?

Great news! The recession is over in New Zealand.

At least that is what our Government believes, so they have raised the OCR (Official Cash Rate). This done the same week that the financial spending of our politicians has been exposed by way of the public information act.

So these same politicians who believe that the tax payer should be funding their porn addictions, golf clubs, alcohol addictions, and clothes (and who knows what else is about to be uncovered) are in a position to know how financially sound the rest of the country are.

I suggest they are that far removed from reality that they have no business running a tap never mind a country. Although running is certainly not something that many of them could manage anyway.

Even if there was a slight recovery happening (although this is still in dispute) you would think the politicians might give the country a little slack before the tax hikes already set in place actually take effect. But no.

I am guessing that we are supposed to react with a ho-hum oh-well there we go attitude. Not a corrupt lets see how we can work the system and make the other taxpayers pay for it kind of attitude.

Today I received a great gift in my inbox. Adam Taha announced that I won his Facebook fan page creation.

From the blog of Adam Taha

This was certainly an unexpected surprise.

Why I am surprised that I won is because this really is a great prize. Adam Taha is an amazingly talented person and his works are legend in so many different circles. He has transformed his own city and beyond. He has excelled in a variety of businesses. He is renown on the internet for his graphics abilities and widely respected for his knowledge.

If you wanted to hire Adam Taha it would cost you thousands – if you could persuade him to work for you.

So when I saw this offer I recognised the value instantly. I immediately shared it with my friends because I wanted to be known as the cool guy who showed them how to win an amazing prize. I never considered actually winning for myself (if I didn’t have bad luck I would have no luck at all).

However, it seems that many others must have thought they would never win too. And they must have combined that lack of belief with a lack of action. So all I can do is encourage you take action in the future. You never know your luck – you just may win literally thousands of dollars worth of prizes like I did today.

I will post an update once we have built the fanpage so you can see the kind of talent that Adam Taha has.

Nuclear weapons were once thought to be the most destructive force on the planet. But even the horrific devastation that nuclear weapons can cause they are no match for another force we see in the world today.

That force is man’s greed. This would have to be the single most destructive force in the world around us. After watching “Ross Kemp: In Search Of Pirates” and delving into the source of Nigerian pirate forces I am appalled.

These are people who have fallen below the poverty line because their environment has been destroyed by oil. Large tracts of land and water-ways have become black wastelands. The pollution is mind-boggling. Of course, America is just beginning to experience the devastation of oil pollution to the detriment of its coastline. And we in New Zealand are opening our coast up to oil exploration.

Oil is not the only source of pollution in the world. Many other countries are belching fumes into the atmosphere, and toxic waste into the waterways. There is no need for the majority of the waste we create other than greed. Profit margins are the reason that we allow this destruction of the planet.

I fear for the legacy that we have left for my children, never mind my children’s children. The world will be a very different place 50 years from now, and it will not be for the better.

I’ll finish my rant and crawl into my clean comfortable bed, while others will go hungry in their polluted makeshift shacks. A little more of the world will die while I sleep. And tomorrow I’ll have forgotten the images of death and destruction … or will I?

It never ceases to astound me what the network channels think is newsworthy.

You can tell when there is no war going on with a political agenda (the majority of wars barely rate a mention). We get all sorts of tripe broadcast to fill the gap. News that shouldn’t even be news in the country of origin is somehow considered worthy of international attention.

That is bad enough. But what of these mass murders? Should we devote so much attention to them? It seems to me it is just glamorizing a sad event. Do we really need to ask friends and family how they felt about their tragic loss? Are we expecting them to come out and say “about time, they had it coming”?

Never mind that we drag up all the mass killings of the past and compare body counts. This one was more horrific than that one. This guy is more famous than that. If that is not encouraging people to go out and claim the most notches in their belt then I don’t know what is.

Perhaps we should stick with how drunk Fergie was, and how much she tried to elicit for access to her husband.