David Brooks’ book The Social Animal was fascinating. We saw a Conservative commentator engaging well with social science. The Road to Character is a rather different book. What then does Brooks tell us about character and impacting politics from retirement? Brooks As Biographer It is a collection of biographies designed to encourage more moral behavior….
Category: Public Policy
Do We Always Fall For Cons?
Maria Konnikova goes through an exciting review of a lot of psychological findings in her book — The Confidence Game. At times I wondered, do we always fall for cons? Confidence Helps Konnikova is an engaging writer and her book is well informed by academic research. She has the fascinating story of a con man…
Price Wars
The problem of price wars is a significant one for businesses. The Problem of Price Wars Consumers generally love price wars. It is possible for such conflicts to hurt consumers long-term but in the short-term lower prices share more of the value created by the business. This makes consumers happier. Managers can more easily see…
Public Policy And Intangibles
Haskel and Westlake in their excellent book “Capitalism without Capital” point out the problems that record keeping has with recording assets. (My last comment on this book I promise). There is a big problem in respect of public policy and intangibles. Reporting Challenges They note the asymmetry of the rules around intangible reporting. Namely that intangibles…
Why Are Intangible Investments Different To Tangible Investments?
Haskel and Westlake’s main point in Capitalism without Capital is that the world is changing and that the predominant form of investment nowadays (investments in intangibles) is different from investment in tangible assets. Why are intangible investments different to tangible investments? The Four Ss of Intangibles The authors, in making the case for intangible investments…
What Does Marketing Do?
What does marketing do? Many people really have little idea. Establishing what marketers do can be an important first step to a meaningful discussion. People Don’t Necessarily Understand marketing Haskel and Westlake have a great new book — Capitalism without Capital. In this they highlight a major problem that they see. The problem they note is…
Political Marketing And The Modern Age
How have election communciations been changing? What can we say about political marketing and the modern age? The US Presidential Election of 2016 With a couple of colleagues, Joseph Ryoo and Alina Nastasoiu, I wrote a chapter in a recent review of the US Presidential Elections in 2016. (We could have just published a one-word…
Do You Trust Business?
Movie villains are often business people. So do you trust business? Evil Business People The remake of the Magnificent Seven was understandably keen to change the villain from the, let’s just say dated, villain portrayal in the original. The writer went for an evil businessman. Audiences seemed fine with it. They find it plausible that…
Listening Versus Leadership
One of the most interesting problems in marketing is how much to listen to consumers. There are certainly challenges with listening to consumers. Sometimes it is probably fair to say that consumers don’t have a great idea what they want. That said, in for profit businesses there rarely is a good reason to ignore consumers’…
Good Marketing And Social Missions
Managers often have challenges understanding how to position their brands and companies when contentious public issues find them. More interesting in some ways are companies whose managers seek out contentious issues. It is very hard to measure the net impact of having a contentious social mission. Experiments are hard to run on social missions. Yet,…
