I enjoy many things.
In general I am obsessed with understanding the whys in life and how those things fit together with each other. I wouldn't say that I see life as a jigsaw puzzle because metaphors are dangerous, and can create false images in people's minds (which they anchor to).
Today I picked up the book "Influence" thanks to looking at the MIT business school site and seeing it on the reading list there. I hadn't heard of it before but I ended up driving down to Denver to pick it up (about 35 minutes or so). I'm only about 50 pages in, but it's worth the read.
I took my dog to the dog park this morning with a mind to read the book while Kiki jumped and ran around. It turns out that the book itself became a topic of conversation. The author (Robert Cialdini) should be happy as it has this huge white bold print on a bright red background. Since the book is about purchasing habits, that is very appropriate. I discussed consumer behavior with the people there: one was a wholesale car buyer/seller and the other was a woman whose job I didn't catch.
Nothing hugely came up in the conversation, but it was interesting to note how uncomfortable people get talking about consumer behavior. I think this is because we are not at all at ease with how programmed we are. We want to believe we are "rational agents" as economic theory tells us, making choices based on perfect information and rigid analysis. Obviously this isn't true, but it's going to be hard to get people to be smarter consumers if they are uncomfortable event TALKING about automated consumer response.
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