Pass the salt
It’s 2 Mentos for the price of 1 in James Addlestone’s recent piece, where he shares 2 separate but related brain fizzers. The first is that the UK productivity crisis may have simply been a survey error(!). And the second is that we need to stop putting data on a pedestal:
“The availability of data has, I think, made us question its veracity less and less [...] None of this means we should use less quantitative data. I think it means we need a more humble relationship with it [...] Research should work more like a detective. No single source solves the mystery [...] Perhaps the countermovement to the age of quantification isn’t rejecting numbers at all. It is simply remembering what they are. An approximation of reality.”
The long way round
The blogosphere has been preaching for a while that AI is shortening the customer journey. But Peter Buckley of Meta has shared two studies showing that ain’t happening (...yet, at least):
“Google / Ipsos found those who used AI noticed or interacted with 12 touchpoints on average, vs 4 for those who didn't. Google's explanation is AI makes finding good information easier, so people take more steps [...] IAB / Talk Shoppe's recorded shopping sessions found something similar. People took more steps after using AI than before using it. Their explanation is trust: only 46% fully trusted what the AI recommended, so most went off to verify.”
“Hey, we’re bikeshedding”
Free yourself! Free yourself from spending too long on the trivial. Russell Davies is the breaker of chains with his explanation of bikeshedding. The concept comes from Cyril Northcote Parkinson and his story of a committee approving plans for a nuclear power station:
“They don't know loads about nuclear power stations, so they discuss it for a little while, but then they approve the plans. The 2nd item on the agenda are the plans for the bike shed that goes next to the power station [...] They have many views on bike sheds, they've all used a bike shed, they all know what colours they like [...] So they spend hours talking about the plans [...] People will talk about trivial stuff because they know about it, because they want to feel like they're contributing [...] They won't talk about stuff they don't understand, and it's hard, they'll just move on [...] With naming it you can raise it in a meeting without accusing people of talking nonsense. You can just say, hey, we’re bikeshedding.”
One for sorrow, two for switching
How good are you at judging whether someone’s method is better than yours? Rob Henderson has been digging into a paper which shows that intelligence and openness can nudge you to switch even if that’s straight into the slower lane of the traffic jam:
“Smart people are better at noticing when a new approach is superior. More interestingly, though, smarter people were also more likely to switch even when the new solution was similar or inferior [...] The authors suggest that the reason for this is that more intelligent people face lower costs when they experiment with new ideas [...] Personality played a role too [...] Openness did not predict switching to superior solutions. Instead, open people were more likely to switch to solutions that were similar or worse.”
And finally…
The next station is Emma Clarke. Very cool, if slightly discombobulating, to put a face to the voice of the London Underground.
Properly chuckled at these odd road signs. I’d like to have ‘Feral Goats for 2 Miles’ on my front door.
Going at 94.34mph on a skateboard is absolutely bananas. Fair play.
Bon weekend,
Fran
