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487 reviews for:
Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain
Steven D. Levitt
3.7 AVERAGE
487 reviews for:
Think Like a Freak: The Authors of Freakonomics Offer to Retrain Your Brain
Steven D. Levitt
3.7 AVERAGE
Quick little audiobook with interesting stories and anecdotes.
Very thought provoking. Take your morals out of the equation to come to a solution. Hmmmm? It was enough to send me to the book store to pick up their other ones.
This fits right in with the other Freak books. There are some great anecdotes and some seemingly reasonable steps to apply. My favorite anecdote was about advertising and using experiments to make decisions as well as fighting the "we've always done it this way" bias.
In this particular instance a company was convinced that TV advertising was very effective for them. Because of the cost of TV ads they could only run ads three times a year. They chose 1. right before Memorial Day, 2. right before Black Friday and 3. right before Christmas. They always saw a spike in sales after the tv ads. Could that be because those are some of the biggest shopping days of the year? They can't test it because they've always done it that way.
In this particular instance a company was convinced that TV advertising was very effective for them. Because of the cost of TV ads they could only run ads three times a year. They chose 1. right before Memorial Day, 2. right before Black Friday and 3. right before Christmas. They always saw a spike in sales after the tv ads. Could that be because those are some of the biggest shopping days of the year? They can't test it because they've always done it that way.
3.5/5
A good read, interesting statistics and viewpoints as always from the Freakonomics team... That being said, I didn't think they went as far into the actual act of "thinking" like a freak, as much as they could have. Despite the interesting twist on their general premise, I felt like they missed an opportunity to explore out of the framework of their previous books a bit more, but they didn't really utilize that space...
A good read, interesting statistics and viewpoints as always from the Freakonomics team... That being said, I didn't think they went as far into the actual act of "thinking" like a freak, as much as they could have. Despite the interesting twist on their general premise, I felt like they missed an opportunity to explore out of the framework of their previous books a bit more, but they didn't really utilize that space...
It was good, but it wasn't great. I always enjoy things like this (ie Malcolm Gladwell, Dan Ariely, or Mary Roach) but I think they need to start providing more actual evidence, rather than just stories and anecdotes. Also, this particular book is mostly just information from their podcast, so if you've previously listened to those, it may not really be worth your time.
I liked it. I listened to it on audio and I really enjoyed them telling you how to "think like a freak". Funny enough I had done a few of their methods before in my life and it really helped me. So yes it is a great book on how to change your way of thinking and look at problems a different way.
Aside from a few stray anecdotes that were sloppily patched together with a weak narrative thread, this book was such hot air and fluff. It felt like the leftovers of everything that did not make it into the first two books in the series, and while still interesting, there were zero new ideas or substantive elaborations presented. Stick with the original.
A new way to look at the questions we ask and why we ask them.
Very short book (a little over 200 pages) and much of this material is familiar to listeners of the podcasts.