Latest Insights
Obama, Behavioral Insights and Bureaucratic Success
On 15th September 2015, President Obama issued an executive order mandating US government agencies employ behavioural insights to enhance their work (read a White House-authored Fact Sheet on the order). On the face of it, this is an unqualified good for behavioural science. Yet Presidential Terms are short, and the current one has only a year to run. Whether such an executive order will have the impact it should will depend on commentary and promises made in the febrile atmosphere of a US election. Political support is valuable, but political polarisation can mean bureaucratic paralysis. This post takes a brief glance at bureaucratic success in the US, EU, UN and UK.
Five Reasons Why We Compromise Our Privacy Online
Historically, most of us have been concerned about information privacy on the internet. But when it comes to our actual behavior, many of us liberally share personal information online, a finding termed the ‘privacy paradox’ in the academic literature. Why this apparent gap between attitudes and behavior?
What Volkswagen Should Do Next
By Timothy Gohmann Image Credit: Chad Kainz (flickr) Volkswagen [...]
The Battle for Consumers Is Often about Beliefs, Not Consumer Experience
Marketers increasingly mold their work around the customer experience. They manufacture rich, immersive interactions, carefully crafted to resonate with consumers. A 1998 Harvard Business Review article on the ‘experience economy’ noted that “experiences are a distinct economic offering.” Quite simply, the argument runs that delightful customer experiences add value and build loyalty. And yet many companies find that objective improvements to products and services, which are central to experience, don’t translate into customers or revenue. The fact is, renovating experience is insufficient, because how we perceive an experience depends deeply on our beliefs and intuitions.
The Nudge Is Not Enough! The Love Story Between Behavioral Science and Practical Applications
Nudges are great, but they aren’t enough. While they are elegant, nudges are (often) just tweaks augmenting a pre-existing service or policy regardless of its quality, appropriateness or fitness. It is time to go from nudging to behavioral design.
Behavioral Economics and Healthcare: A Match Made in Heaven
By Benjamin Voyer Out of all the areas of [...]