Can you describe what you do as "choice architecture" or "decision architecture"?

Yes, I'm late to the party, but I recently picked up the 2008 book Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Cass Sunstein and economist Richard Thaler.  (And the whole truth is that I've only skimmed a bit of it, but I won't let that stop me!)

 

Choice architecture describes the way in which decisions are influenced by how the choices are presented (in order to influence the outcome).  The book proposes that default outcomes of a situation can be arranged to be the outcome desired by the person or organization presenting the choice. This can be used with a micro (small individual decisions, like how much popcorn to eat) and macro scope (social policy, encouraging retirement savings through taxation rules, etc.).

I found myself thinking that those of us involved in consulting, coaching, change and communication do a lot of "choice architecture".  I was musing along these lines to a friend, and incorrectly remembered the name of this concept as "decision architecture".  Later I googled or wikipedia'd these terms and was surprised to see that they are used very very differently!

"Decision Architecture" doesn't exist on wikipedia (fancy that!), but  is used here in
 
User Experience Magazine to describe how to design a website to guide the users' choices of clicking and navigating and buying. Quite a micro scope indeed - or on second thought, maybe I'm quite mistaken - could be a big deal if you're designing for amazon or ebay.

Check this out....the eponymous company Decision Architecture Associates describes themselves as..."specializes in the application of advanced quantitative methods to business decision problems".  It takes the term in a whole new direction, doesn't it?  Oh, but on second-look, the website hasn't been updated since 2008, so maybe this definition didn't have legs. 

Now, all this lead in to ask the question:

Can we usefully employ these terms

choice architecture  or decision architecture

to describe aspects of our work?  

 

Punchline on Privacy?

Thanks to the Madisonians who came to Ideacircle - it seems the consensus is to keep your personal life and your professional life, posts, social networks _completely_ separate in order to preserve your privacy and carefully manage your professional brand. Dull but true for this group.

That said - I think the answer would have been different if we had some 20-somethings in the conversation...

 

Tuesday May 15th @ 7pm: Rant and Elucidate!

Your chance to rant and elucidate in person!

Tuesday May 15th @ 7pm
Brocach on Monroe Street in Madison 

Thank you for your interest in the topic of the last post, the opportunity cost of privacy. There is much we can learn from each other here, judging from the feedback I've received so far...  

Just a reminder - 

Question 1: How are we supposed to build our personal brand?

Question 2: If we are too private on-line, what do we miss out on?

Looking forward to it!

p.s. the yellow highlights are links!?!? I'm going to have to change the template... remind me. 

What is the opportunity cost of privacy?

I've been considering all the advice of how to build your brand with social media, then hearing about how a slip of the typing fingers belying one's true self can destroy one's good name. Being safely past the risk of posing for drunken-bikini photos even though I am within spitting distance of a top 10 "party school" (so disappointing, I know.  And it wouldn't be the bikini who was drunk, either, you grammar queen types), I digress. 

I got to wondering about more subtle consequences of participating on-line. My brilliantly funny or insightful facebook or blog comments could pop up on a google search and impact my "on-line reputation". My post on "Shut Up and Dance" yielded an email from a friend, rather that a comment on the public blog, as the she did not want her comment to be searchable.  I didn't even think about the fact that comments are searchable! Fair call. 

Question 1: How are we supposed to build our personal brand?

Is that a whole-person brand? Is it two brands? The professional persona, and the unprofessional (of course, ahem, I mean outside-of-work) persona? Do you have one brand or two? Are you using a pseudonym for your privately fun side, so it doesn't impact your professional brand? Should you? Why can't you have a sense of humour, or a fun-side to your work persona?  Should we be all that we can be? Do we risk multiple personality disorder on top of fewer job offers?

 

Question 2: If we are too private on-line, what do we miss out on?

The personal branding guru Dan Schawbel says I'm missing out!   If we don't want to take the risk of sharing too much, are we missing out on things that we could find, read, participate in, etc. if we just shared a little more? (...and I don't think I mean sharing what you had for lunch, unless that starts a lunch club... and that would be fun!  Okay.  I take it back.)  Are we missing out on business opportunities and collaborations because we are too closed? We know a little about the nasty privacy problems (like ID theft and stalking)  but what about the missed opportunities?

What to do, what to do....well, if we decide to be loud and proud, here are even more ideas...

• Preserving the 'right to be left alone'
• Tips on safe-sharing
• 9 Tips for Establishing Your Own Marketing Method as a Freelancer
• Facebook and other Social Media for Business  @ Madison College West

I'd love to hear what you think - take a risk and comment below (or anonymously).  If you'd prefer it NOT to be searchable, let's get together and verbalize.... here are some dates to choose from.

See you soon.... from...what's my pen name...hmmmm... I'd better change the name of this blog. 

Further to the happiness thing....

... remember we talked about this at our Hotel Red meeting?

I found a more pragmatic list of things that happy mid-career women are doing to be happy (and to distract themselves from earning $750K less than men during their career)...from author Gail Sheehy (a la New Passages):

http://www.gailsheehy.com/index.php

Wanna talk? 5 ways youg professionals want to be led

Hello all - long time no type...  One of our group members, Tedd, recently sent an article suggestion from Forbes!  Yay Tedd!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/glennllopis/2012/03/12/5-ways-young-professionals-want-to-be-led/

Did we talk a little about the generational gaps last time? Are they real or imagined?  Or, are they just the standard life-stages stuff a la Gail Sheehy in New Passages?

Please comment on it and let us know what you think - and if you'd like to get together to talk it through! 

Tonight 7pm-parking info for HotelRED

here is a link to the map...
http://hotelred.com/contact

parking is BEHIND the hotel (go down the backlane...yes, the backlane)
or
on Monroe Street....

see you there - 7-8:30pm!

this Thursday, January 26th at 7pm to 8:30 at HotelRed

Let's go with this Thursday, January 26th at 7pm to 8:30 in the lobby bar at HotelRed on Monroe Street - I suggest we talk about these articles previously posted:

The Business Case for Reading Novels (jan19th)
and
Forget about finding your passion... (jan 13th)

See you there!  

Seems like we liked Thursdays - either the 26th or Feb 2..

How about another "meeting" on one or more of the articles below? 
Seems like we liked Thursdays - either the 26th or Feb 2..
vote here please:
http://www.doodle.com/bq7nt5f5n85ev9r6

I'll post the date very soon....
Looking forward to it!

The Business Case for Reading Novels

Funny - I've recently begun actually reading fiction in a determined way.  In the past, I found the characters irritatingly human - but which I mean failable, prone to mistakes, misguided, unaware, etc. etc.  Perhaps I've grown into some understanding of the grey areas of life, and the reality of the complex individual interacting with other complex individuals.  Now that I can see the grey, I can appreciate the feckless and frustrating characters, with their wacky motivations. 

Even better - HBR's blogger Anne Kreamer says it will make me better in business too! 

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/01/the_business_case_for_reading.html#.Txjoiw4O7ys.google

have you always loved fiction?
or are you late to the table, like me? 
how has an appreciation of fiction impacted the way you interpret business and organizational life?

Forget about finding your passion. Instead, focus on finding big problems.

I got very excited about this:
<snip>
Like myself, today's twentysomethings were raised to find our dreams and follow them. But it's a different world. And as the jobless generation grows up, we realize the grand betrayal of the false idols of passion. This philosophy no longer works for us, or at most, feels incomplete. So what do we do? I propose a different frame of reference: Forget about finding your passion. Instead, focus on finding big problems.

Putting problems at the center of our decision-making changes everything. It's not about the self anymore. It's about what you can do and how you can be a valuable contributor. People working on the biggest problems are compensated in the biggest ways. I don't mean this in a strict financial sense, but in a deeply human sense. For one, it shifts your attention from you to others and the wider world. You stop dwelling. You become less self-absorbed. Ironically, we become happier if we worry less about what makes us happy.

The good thing is that there are a lot of big problems to go by: climate change, sustainability, poverty, education, health care, technology, and urbanization in emerging markets. What big problem serves as your compass? If you're a young leader and you haven't articulated this yet, here are some things you can do.
<snip>
here's the full article: 
http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2012/01/to_find_happiness_forget_about.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+harvardbusiness+(HBR.org)&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher#.TxCSIO6P4h0.google

I'm all over this idea - contributing to solving problems bigger than yourself is not just for youngsters anymore!  thoughts?

How about this article for a late January/early Feb meeting?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/19/opinion/blow-decline-of-american-exceptionalism.html

...might be a lively topic to consider with respect to our business disciplines....

Comments? Other article suggestions?
Watch this space for date/time/place....