The abundance of data and knowledge is amazing yet often overwhelming. In fact, in 2020 2.5 quintillion bytes of data were created every day. The amount of data is growing 5X faster than the world economy!
So, as individuals, how are we supposed to keep up with that? My strategy to cope has three pillars:
- Pick your battles and assess new information critically. Quality will always triumph quantity.
- Listen to learn and understand others, especially those with different perspectives and experiences than your own.
- Be humble and willing to change your mind, as new information and perspectives expand your views.
The foundations of who we are remains the same – even when we are drowning in new data. I’ve gathered some of the stuff that have shaped my beliefs, thinking and ways of working in the list below – hoping you’ll find them useful as well!
Thinking, Fast and Slow (2011) is a masterful book on psychology and behavioral economics by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman. Learn your two systems of thinking, how you make decisions, and your greatest vulnerabilities to bad decisions.
Kahneman takes us on a tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. Kahneman exposes the extraordinary capabilities—and also the faults and biases—of fast thinking, and reveals the pervasive influence of intuitive impressions on our thoughts and behavior.
A must read for anyone interested in behavioral economics.
Nobel laureate Richard H. Thaler has spent his career studying the radical notion that the central agents in the economy are humans—predictable, error-prone individuals.
Misbehaving (2016) is his arresting, frequently hilarious account of the struggle to bring an academic discipline back down to earth—and change the way we think about economics, ourselves, and our world..
Coupling recent discoveries in human psychology with a practical understanding of incentives and market behavior, Thaler enlightens readers about how to make smarter decisions in an increasingly mystifying world.
In How Brands Grow (2010), marketing professor Byron Sharp argues that many of the marketing principles commonly taught in business schools are unsubstantiated myths. The book provides evidence-based answers to the key questions asked by marketers every day. Tackling issues such as how brands grow, how advertising really works, what price promotions really do & how loyalty programs really affect loyalty.
The first of many incredibly insightful and useful summaries of empirical research from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute. Since it was first launched, Ehrenberg-Bass institute has continued to do marketing science and published several other pieces of research and books on the topic.
Les Binet and Peter Fields ‘The long and Short of it’ (2013) is another classic. They analyzed 996 campaigns over 30 years, covering over 700 brands and 83 categories. What they found is that short term and long term advertising effects work in different ways. The big payback comes from the long term.
In a recent interview, celebrating the 10th anniversary of the book, Les Binet said that most of the findings still hold today, re-iterating the need for brands to appeal to human emotions.
Quiri - Human insights and perspectives 