Category: Behavior

  • Keyword: Overfocusing

    The Hollywood strikes versus what makes experiences special in the first place. This is the third piece in my keywords thread, but you don’t need to read anything else to understand this one. Bad products can yield positive experiences, but we don’t have useful tools to describe the difference because we tend to focus more on products…

  • Economist, DeSantis, Trump, Shakespeare

    The May 27th issue of The Economist has an in-depth briefing entitled, “A bungled coup: Ron DeSantis has little chance of beating Donald Trump to his party’s nomination.” The Economist is always literate, but it isn’t often literary. This piece persistently conjures up Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar throughout. That includes the opening line: “Belatedly and nervously, the would-be assassins have been…

  • Keyword: Persuasion

    People decide with their hearts and justify with their heads. Knowing what to do with that can make you a more effective communicator. Also, a persuasion lesson from my old boss, Rick Parkhill. The word “persuasion” gets a bad rap because it sounds like a con job where the persuader pulls one over on an…

  • The Anatomy of Delight

    A Broadway show, a YouTube video, and a classic movie lead me to explore how surprise comes from novelty on the other side of familiarity… & why that’s actionable for creators and business leaders. People call things delightful all the time, but what exactly is delight? It’s not just pleasure, nor is it simply more…

  • Generative AI, Misinformation, and the Plausibility Loophole

    By now, it’s common knowledge that programs like ChatGPT say things that just aren’t true, but why do we believe the lies so readily? The answer is F.A.B.S. Most people writing about generative AI (ChatGPT, DALL-E, Bard) focus on what the AIs can do, which is understandable since these algorithms are still new. With ChatGPT,…

  • Keyword: Eventness

    Watching the series finale of “Star Trek: Picard” was a lonely exercise because most of the value of experiences comes from sharing them. Regret seldom punctuates my day-to-day life, but if I had Prof. Peabody’s Wayback Machine handy I would jump back a few days and then schlep up to Seattle or down to L.A.…

  • Attention is Not a Currency

    “Paying attention,” a common metaphor, is misleading because there are different sorts of attention, and the relationship among them isn’t reducible to numbers. If you’re in the Attention Business—and whether you’re selling movies, cars, toothpaste, whoopee cushions, sex toys, health insurance, a ride hailing service, or a new ointment for that embarrassing rash, every business is in…

  • Why People Believe Conspiracy Theories

    What makes people believe nonsense for which there is no evidence? As I first wrote a year ago, you can see the elements of persuasion in this simple quadrant: Mostly, people decide with their hearts and then justify with their heads. They’re also more keen to avoid loss than to pursue gain. Knowing where your argument…

  • Why Amazon Blew it Killing “Smile”

    The country’s largest ecommerce company ended a program that donated 0.5% of eligible purchases to charities customers selected. This might have surprising negative consequences for Amazon’s brand. This week, Amazon announced that it was ending its “AmazonSmile” program that enabled customers to support charities with most purchases. The program will end on February 20th. I…

  • Artisanal Crap

    As generative AI makes first-pass creation faster and easier, an unintended consequence is that humans may become less able to make great things. Let me start by stipulating that generative AI (ChatGPT, DALL-E) will change how we do what we do, taking the heavy lifting off much human endeavor. This will be true whether it’s…