TED Talks: Twists of the Mind

I know I wrote that the next few posts would be about cultural differences between France and Hong Kong, but as a good French person I only define rules so that I can have the pleasure to break them… ;o)

So, here is another TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) Talk video. This one is by Michael Shermer, founder/publisher of Skeptic Magazine, and author of several books, including Why People Believe Weird Things. It was recorded in February 2006 and last around 18 minutes.

Apart from the fact that you will get a good laugh watching this video, there is one very important point I found there about priming. Priming is roughly preparing the mind to what it will encounter. The result is that the mind will focus its attention on one thing, while actually other factors should be taken into account. Priming can result in total bias if not taken into account.

Imagine you are discussing with the creative director of the advertising company you are working with. He (or she) explains you the concept of the ad they made and shows you the storyboard. You find it great. You produce that and it is a total failure because people just don’t get the concept… The very fact that the creative director explained you the concept before showing the storyboard induced a bias that you should be aware of. This may sound trivial, but it happens everyday. It is just like asking participants to rate a product in a focus group after telling them how “this product has so many cool features”.

Is More Choice A Good Thing?

Here is another great video taken from TED (Technology Entertainment Design) Talks. This one was made by Barry Schwartz in July 2005 following the release of his book "The Paradox Of Choice" (duration: 20 minutes).

Please go check the Malcolm Gladwell video I posted earlier if you did not watch it.

In this talk, Barry Schwartz builds a very strong argument against providing too much choice to people. He highlights that in regards to choice, although too little is bad, too much can as well have a very negative effect on people on four different aspects:

1. Regret and anticipated regret
2. Opportunity cost
3. Escalation of expectations
4. Self-blame

This presentation relates directly to customer experience and to the strategies companies employ to provide positive, or higher than expectations, experiences. With expectations getting higher with the increase in choice, companies should consider the paradox highlighted here seriously.

If we look at clothing shops in Hong Kong for example, instead of having a simple Giordano, now you have Giordano, Giordano Ladies, Giordano Junior, Giordano Concepts. With every new type of store created, customers' expectations of how well a specific store can address their needs will increase, thus making it much more difficult to exceed these customers' expectations. Few choices answering specific needs and clear distinctions between each choice, rather than choice overload, is a winning formula.

Customer Experience is about Individuals!

There is a great speech from Malcom Gladwell, the author of bestsellers "Blink" and "The Tipping Point", that I think explains very well the need to consider customers as individuals. It thus complements nicely the concept that customer experience is about individuals as I highlighted in my last post on What is Customer Experience. It also highlights the need to use innovative techniques when researching customers to uncover needs that cannot be identified by direct questioning.

His talk on “what every business can learn from spaghetti sauce” was made during the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) 2004 event in Monterey. I know it is a bit old, but it is simply a great talk that can be watched over and over.

When watching this, we can wonder how ready the organizations we are working in or we are interacting with are to identify, understand and leverage differences among customers.