You need to sign in or sign up before continuing.
Take a photo of a barcode or cover
sanzianaperju 's review for:
Alchemy: The Surprising Power of Ideas That Don't Make Sense
by Rory Sutherland
Although this book has been written by the vice-chairman of Ogilvy (an advertising agency), the insights presented can also be applied to business, policy making and daily life. The author references game theory, evolutionary psychology and behavioural economics research as well as his own experience to support his message. The result is an elegant defense of the usage of unconventional creativity for problem solving in a world that transformed economic models into restrictive dogmas. The main point is that value/money/power can be generated 'out of thin air' by changing the perspective and referring back to the true motivations of people.
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
"Making a train journey 20 per cent faster might cost hundreds of millions, but making it 20 per cent more enjoyable may cost almost nothing.
It seems likely that the biggest progress in the next 50 years may come not from improvements in technology but in psychology and design thinking. Put simply, it’s easy to achieve massive improvements in perception at a fraction of the cost of equivalent improvements in reality."
"We don’t value things; we value their meaning. What they are is determined by the laws of physics, but what they mean is determined by the laws of psychology."
"Sadly, no one in public life believes in magic, or trusts those who purvey it. If you propose any solution where the gain in perceived value outweighs the attendant expenditure in money, time, effort or resources, people either don’t believe you, or worse, they think you are somehow cheating them. This is why marketing doesn’t get any credit in business – when it generates magic, it is more socially acceptable to attribute the resulting success to logistics or cost-control."
"As any game theorist knows, there is a virtue to making slightly random decisions that do not conform to established rules. In a competitive setting such as recruitment, an unconventional rule for spotting talent that nobody else uses may be far better than a ‘better’ rule which is in common use, because it will allow you to find talent that is undervalued by everyone else."
"Conventional wisdom about human decision-making has always held that our attitudes drive our behaviour, but evidence strongly suggests that the process mostly works in reverse: the behaviours we adopt shape our attitudes."
"It seems safer to create an artificial model that allows one logical solution and to claim that the decision was driven by ‘facts’ rather than opinion: remember that what often matters most to those making a decision in business or government is not a successful outcome, but their ability to defend their decision, whatever the outcome may be."
"The advertisements which bees find useful are flowers – and if you think about it, a flower is simply a weed with an advertising budget."
Here are some of my favorite quotes:
"Making a train journey 20 per cent faster might cost hundreds of millions, but making it 20 per cent more enjoyable may cost almost nothing.
It seems likely that the biggest progress in the next 50 years may come not from improvements in technology but in psychology and design thinking. Put simply, it’s easy to achieve massive improvements in perception at a fraction of the cost of equivalent improvements in reality."
"We don’t value things; we value their meaning. What they are is determined by the laws of physics, but what they mean is determined by the laws of psychology."
"Sadly, no one in public life believes in magic, or trusts those who purvey it. If you propose any solution where the gain in perceived value outweighs the attendant expenditure in money, time, effort or resources, people either don’t believe you, or worse, they think you are somehow cheating them. This is why marketing doesn’t get any credit in business – when it generates magic, it is more socially acceptable to attribute the resulting success to logistics or cost-control."
"As any game theorist knows, there is a virtue to making slightly random decisions that do not conform to established rules. In a competitive setting such as recruitment, an unconventional rule for spotting talent that nobody else uses may be far better than a ‘better’ rule which is in common use, because it will allow you to find talent that is undervalued by everyone else."
"Conventional wisdom about human decision-making has always held that our attitudes drive our behaviour, but evidence strongly suggests that the process mostly works in reverse: the behaviours we adopt shape our attitudes."
"It seems safer to create an artificial model that allows one logical solution and to claim that the decision was driven by ‘facts’ rather than opinion: remember that what often matters most to those making a decision in business or government is not a successful outcome, but their ability to defend their decision, whatever the outcome may be."
"The advertisements which bees find useful are flowers – and if you think about it, a flower is simply a weed with an advertising budget."