People often view complex as synonymous with brilliant. Only a genius could invent something with a huge number of moving parts. Such thinking misses the point. The real challenge comes to simplify. To reduce complexity by focusing on what is important. There is much to be said for simple and smart solutions. The Problem of…
Author: neilbendle
Neil is an Associate Professor Marketing at the Terry College of Business, University of Georgia. He investigates the measurement of marketing performance, the accounting/marketing interface, and the impact of non-standard decision making in commercial and political markets.
Neil is the Chair of the Marketing Accountability Standards Board advisors. He is co-author of Marketing Metrics: The Manager’s Guide to Measuring Marketing Performance (3rd edition) Wharton School Press and is co-author of a cartoon book: Behavioural Economics for Kids.
Romance, Fear And Self-Knowledge
Marketing theory often starts with the assumption that we know what we want. That marketers serve consumers’ preferences underpins the marketing concept. Unfortunately, there is quite a lot of research that suggests that we don’t know our own preferences that well. This is illustrated at the intersection of romance, fear, and self-knowledge. A Valentine’s Day…
Simplification, Oversimplification, And Competitive Advantage
There are many ideas to learn in strategy. It is helpful to convey them in a clear and easy-to-understand manner. Yet I have concerns about oversimplification and competitive advantage. Simplifying Competition Bruce Greenwald‘s and Judd Kahn’s book has great cases and it is easy to see why managers might find the certainty they communicate useful. They suggest simplifying…
Classification And The Platypus: Imposing Rigid Structure On A Complex World
Classification is fundamentally a problem. It is putting things that are different into categories to make us feel better. (Perhaps more fairly to allow us to cope with a complex world). Classification and the platypus tells us that we shouldn’t do it more than we have to. Classifying Seems To Cheer Some People Up People…
Reference Dependence In A Squash And A Squeeze
I’m interested in how to explain tricky ideas in simple language. (This was the intention of Behavioural Economics For Kids). Julia Donaldson is an useful place to start looking for ideas to help with this. She, an exceptionally successful children’s author, is excellent at conveying engaging stories with interesting messages in few words. There is…
David, Goliath And Malcolm
It seems fashionable to denigrate Malcolm Gladwell. Academics moan; “he is conceptually loose and borrows ideas from other people”. It reminds me of Louis in Casablanca. People seem shocked to hear that gambling is going on. What were the critics expecting? Of course, Gladwell popularizes other people’s ideas. (For the record he can borrow and…
Valuing Not-For-Profit Brands
Valuing a for-profit brand is a significant challenge. This is despite the fact that there exists a stream of profits you can use as the basis for the valuation. Valuing not-for-profit brands takes the challenge to a whole new level. As such it is not surprising that most people might instinctively reject putting a financial…
Engaging With Other Disciplines
Has the way we think changed recently (on an evolutionary timescale)? Marlene Zuk suggests that as change is constant, the way we think will also have changed. This conflicts with evolutionary psychologists. They assume human brains are products of adaptation to the distant past. In one sense the evolutionary psychologists’ assumption is wrong. Like any…
Natural Does Not Equal Right
New year’s resolution time so I’ll discuss Marlene Zuk on our adaptation to diets. Zuk’s book was interesting and entertaining. I do have some issues which I’ll discuss next post. For now, I’ll note she enjoyed herself critiquing evolutionarily inspired diets and made useful criticisms. The headline is natural does not equal right. Just because…
The Deadweight Loss Of Christmas
In a holiday theme I’m discussing the Deadweight Loss of christmas. The basic idea is that gift-giving destroys value for society. The Deadweight Loss Of Christmas When buying for myself I get what I most value with the money. When you buy something for me you don’t know what I want so probably buy something…
