Priming Experiments

In one of my tweets (see here), I referred to 'priming' and used the simpler Wikipedia definition. I had blogged about priming previously too: here.
Here's is another striking experiment I picked from Think Twice by Mauboussin ...

In this test, the researchers placed the French and German wine next to each other, along with small national flags. Over two weeks, the scientists alternated playing French accordion and German Bierkeller pieces and watched the results. When French music played, French wines represented 77 percent of the sales. When German music played, consumers selected German wines 73 percent of the time.

Amazing, isn't it?
I am assuming, the shoppers were able to make out French music from the German music.

If I were to carry out the experiment, I would do this experiment by alternating French, German and some distinctly non-German, non-French music, say Indian music. Just to see the impact on the sales when Indian music played out.

Calculus of friendship

When you come across books that have titles such as this ... The Calculus of Friendship: What a Teacher and a Student Learned about Life while Corresponding about Math ... you wonder who would buy these. After all how popular could a book written by a maths professor be? But then you realize that good books transcend genres. Good books need to be promoted and so here's my attempt to boost its sales. Please click on this link and be prepare to be enthralled.

And oh! I almost forgot!
This one is no. 500 - my 500th post on this blog.

Want to be rich? - Part 11

I keep telling all my colleagues, friends, and acquaintances: it is not how much your earn that makes you rich. It is how much you save.

Money might come pouring in from all your investments or from the high-paying job that you do, but you will not become wealthy unless you stop spending on that thing of desire that catches your fancy every once in a while. The road to riches has many diversions taking you away from it - and all those diversions are rooted in impulsive buying.

You have been thinking of jogging in the morning. You seem to be possessed by it. You read up all the health magazines. You end up buying running shoes (even though you already have a pair of sports shoes; but they are not running shoes, are they?) a pair of track pants, a head band and wrist bands, some weights (the magazines say that weights are essential to give you maximum benefit of jogging) and ... this list goes on and on. A year down the line you have stopped jogging. And the junk lies in your garage.

That is money down the drain.

There is another aspect of spending that you need to be very careful about. And this is my personal experience. Coming from the background I come from, I was very reluctant to purchase big ticket items. But you know what. You just have to break the first barrier and buy an object of desire that is slightly beyond what you have purchased till now. Suddenly you are free. You start purchasing more items of similar price range. Let's say I was reluctant to buy anything beyond Rs. 10,000. Then one day, I go ahead and buy something - let's say a bicycle - worth Rs. 13000 (I really, really needed that object). It took me a great effort to buy that. But once I have done that, I suddenly find myself window-shopping for objects of that price range. It took me a while to realize that I had crossed the threshold and that the reluctance had disappeared.

This to my mind is more pernicious than impulsive purchases.

I am not advocating a non-materialistic live - where is the fun then? Once in a while it is ok to give in to impulses. Sometimes. Just be careful of breaking the upper limit of spending barriers. If you are feeling uneasy about buying something, perhaps there is something you should feel uneasy about.

Future with Kindle; Just Imagine

By now my regular readers are familiar with my obsession for Kindle (see here). But I see the use of Kindle or any other similar e-ink based reader far beyond the ordinary.

Can you imagine this ...

The teacher calls out attendance. All students are present. No. Not all. One boy is absent. Not well. Oh! Ok. The teacher asks all students to turn to page 24 of their English reader and asks Naveen to read out the first line and explain the meaning. Naveen, quick as a flash, takes out his Kindle - yes, Kindle - turns to page 24, holds the Kindle in his left hand and starts reading. Other students too turn on their Kindle, highlight some lines and make necessary notes on the margin. At one point Naveen fumbles. He needs to look up the Wiki. Click of a button and Wiki is accessible. So is a dictionary if he wants to refer to it.

In the next class, the maths teacher wants to start geometry. Unfortunately, she was absent for the whole of last week and she could not convey to the students that they need to buy a new book on Geometry. No sweat. The new book is wirelessly delivered to all the Kindle users. Kindle to the rescue.

In the third class, the geography teacher wants to know if everyone has submitted their homework. Students nod their heads. All of them have e-mailed the homework to the teacher that she can now read on her Kindle. She picks up a homework and starts discussing it in the class.

At the end of the day, when your son or daughter gets down from the bus, s/he sees you waiting at the gate and comes bouncing to meet you. No heavy bag to drag on the tired shoulders.

Can you imagine all that?

That is future for you.
A future where the early morning / late night ritual of 'packing the bag' is history.
A future where thousands of trees are not cut down for producing text books.
A future where young shoulders do not bend down carrying mountain of books to school.

Cool!
 

Note: I have taken the picture of Kindle from the Amazon website.

Wake Your Mind Up

Didn't you always want to become a genius? Without trying, of course! Wouldn't you like to achieve more in less time? Resolve difficult problems at one glance? I always wanted to do this. Imagine walking into a room full of people struggling with a tough issue. You have a glance at the flip charts, shrug, offer a solution and walk out leaving everyone flabbergasted. Now that would be something! Such 'wow' moments have been few and far between. But I never stopped dreaming.

I am not alone in my thinking though - the market is flooded with how-to-think-like-a-genius type self-development books. I have always tried to avoid such books. I have always viewed them with suspicion. If only becoming a genius was that easy ...

But I have two. One is How To Think Like Leonardo da Vinci by Michael J. Gelb. I have blogged on this before. Here. Not sure whether this helped me or not, but the only reason I am learning German is this book. (You need to read the book to find the connection - though it is very obvious).

Some time ago I succumbed to another book. It was the title that caught my attention. The Mind Gym: Wake Your Mind Up. I must have purchased this book about a year ago and only today managed to force myself to read it. It lay untouched all these months. The book comes with a free membership to the mind gym website.

Will let you know as the days progress if this book helps me use my brain in new ways. You can check it out as well.

Wish me luck!

If you liked this blog, why don't you stay back a bit and read my other blogs discussing books that buy. Here.