drPep – Page 16

Markets are not efficient, but shaped by the evolution of actors such as hedge funds and electronic traders

Elegant mix of historic analysis of market dynamics and experiments with natural selection in non-biological context.

Cognitive biases can be leveraged in a gazillion of ways to make Marketing more effective

Impressive laundry list of neuromarketing applications, ranging from solid science-based insights to intuitively appealing generalities.

The applied science of addictive behaviour drives how we interact with technology

Adam Alter – Irristable

Please note the irony in the fact that Amazon does not offer this book as ebook.

Only bet (in the casino or on Wallstreet) when you have an edge.

Edward Thorp – A man for all markets

Sage advise from the man who beat the dealer at blackjack and outperformed the market as one of the world’s first quants (but feel free to skip the chapters about Edward’s youth as a prodigy).

J.D. Vance – Hilbilly elegy

White trash Hilbilly gets his life under control thanks to the Marine Corps, while his relatives relive the same hopeless life generation after generation.

Compassionately written, but downplaying that uneducated, scared anti-intellectuals are often ruthlessly mean towards anyone who is not part of their clan.

Geoffrey Moore – Crossing the chasm

A cutting-edge tech company marketing to early adopters has to completely reinvent itself to appeal to the mainstream market.

Written in an entertaining laid-back style that more business books could use and – above all – surprisingly relevant over 25 years after first publication in 1991.

Philip Tetlock – Superforecasting

To become a superforecaster: recognize your cognitive biases, do not mind to be wrong, and calibrate your thinking based on evidence.

While containing valuable advice, the book does not go much beyond the basic market research toolkit I’d expect any strategy consultant to possess.

The Data’s Advocate

How to assure that insights change business decisions

The Board has decreed that you have to become a data-driven organization. To avoid obsolescence, things need to change. The old way of doing business is no longer viable. Only Data can make you smarter.

So, there you go. An Analytics department is set-up. A Big Data platform is is put in place. Data scientists are hired. Models are fitted. Insights flood the organization. And after a while all graphs start pointing to the top-right corner. Right?

Nope: Sales wants to sell, Operations wants to operate, and Marketing wants to do whatever it is that Marketing wants to do. No-one ever wants a proper analysis. Especially if the outcome is likely to challenge the status quo. There is a shop to run, a client to manage, and a problem to fix. If Analytics does not directly help to do just that, it is deemed useless. And everyone who does not get that, frankly, does not understand the business. That’s how, in many organizations, Data is side-tracked.

The first priority, is of course to assure that your insights are relevant and focus on improving key business decisions. But that is not enough. These insights should actually change the decisions your organization makes. And frankly, many business owners are unable to take an impartial perspective with respect to unexpected challenges – especially when under pressure.

What is needed, is someone who can ensure the fact-based perspective is taken into account in decision making.

Someone needs to defend data-driven insights without looking for compromises from the start. Someone needs to be in a position to challenge Category Management on their Sales v. Margin trade-offs. Someone needs to hold firm on the risk assessment in the face of an exciting Sales opportunity.

In short: you need a Data’s Advocate.

That is not to say that Data should always prevail over ‘Gut’ or ‘Experience’, or ‘Entrepreneurship’, or whatever you call it. But the trade-off should be an explicit one. Both to assure better decisions, and to build awareness on what it means to be a data driven organization.

Kevin Kelly – The inevitable

The narrative of how technology is changing the world told through 12 ‘forces’: Becoming, Cognifying, Flowing, Screening, Accessing, Sharing, Filtering, Remixing, Interacting, Tracking, Questioning, and Beginning.

Enjoyable, yet somewhat theoretical, meandering between fundamental truisms and gross simplicications, leaving the reader with one key question: ‘Where does it pay off to act contrarian?’

Scott Carney – What doesn’t kill us

There is evidence that Wim Hof’s method for cold endurance builds resiliance of the human body, despite the fact that the Ice Man himself is a bit of a lunatic.

The quest of a journalist overcoming his initial scpeticism and transforming from a coach potatoe into a survival adept, who walks up mount Kilimajaro bare-chested and loses his initial stance as an objective observer.

Yuval Noah Harari – Homo Deus

Considering incentives for humanity, The most likely future scenario for AI, is for humans to develop into technology-supported cyborgs.

Strongly opiniated view on the future of humanity, mostly valuable due to the emphasis on the role of humans in steering development of technology and AI.

Mel Robbins – The 5 second rule

Counting back from 5 to 1 and then ‘go’ is a useful mind trick that helps to bypass inertia.

Entertaining proponent of the emerging trend of ‘self re-programming’ within ‘self help’, leveraging scientific insights from fields such as neuro science and behavioral economics to train the mind.