thinks

After suffering a tragic injury as a young man, Dan Ariely wanted to know what sorts of treatment hurt less. Was it better - as the adage says - to rip the band-aid off all at once? Or was it better to slowly peel the bandages off? Questions such as these led Ariely to the field of behavioral economics, where he continued to ask questions about why people sometimes pay too high a price when logic would dictate otherwise. He outlines what he’s learned in his terrific book, “Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions”.

Ariely examines the relationships between relative prices and purchase decisions, procrastination and decision making, the costs of social norms vs. economic transactions, and what causes people to cheat. Smart, well-written, often funny and occasionally poignant, Ariely brings both a scientist’s detachment and a moralist’s passion to these and other issues. Business managers and marketers will gain tremendous insights for setting prices designed to sell, and everyone will learn more about who we are and why we do what we do. I highly recommend picking up a copy.

Whether you set prices - or simply want to avoid paying a price too high - “Predictably Irrational” is worth every penny. Grab a copy today.

I’ve been tracking the business value of Twitter on thinks repeatedly. Now CNN has a story highlighting its power in a life-or-death situation. What’s most important about tools such as these is not the tool. It’s how you use it and whether it’s used by the people you connect with - whether customers or friends. The key to social networking, social media, or social tools is not networking, media, or tools. It’s social. Without the people, the tool is useless.

Willie Sutton famously explained his reason for robbing banks: “That’s where the money is.” As you plan your social strategy, have you given enough thought to where the customers are?

When was the last time you found what you were looking for? This week’s thinks Ecommerce Link Digest links up to all the ways your customers find what they want.

• First up, Bryan Eisenberg interviews Ralph Wilson on how customers find what they want. Very good video. Check it out.
• The always fabulous Linda Bustos talks about how retailers can improve SEO on branded pages. Very smart.
• Given all the ways you can connect with your customers, John Jantsch asks the very important question: “how do your customers find you?”
• And finally, Avinash Kaushik looks at the other end of the equation, asking how you find what your customers care about on your site. Neat.

Enjoy your weekend everyone. And hope to find you right back here next week.

John Jantsch over at Duct Tape Marketing looks at the value of LinkedIn for increasing sales, which poses an interesting question:

What social networks do you use and which ones work for your business?

For instance, on this blog I get a fair bit of (qualified, meaningful) traffic from:

• Twitter
• StumbleUpon
• LinkedIn
• MyBlogLog

What works for you? Tell us in the comments below.

A couple weeks back, I managed to lose my right hand, er, my Blackberry Pearl. Suddenly, I lacked access to my email, voice and data applications that I have increasingly taken for granted over the last several years. No email. No texting. No mobile web browsing. No Twitter. Gah.

So, what did I learn?

• Voice remains the killer app. While I didn’t have access to the many mobile web elements I use regularly (GReader and Twitter tops among them), not having a phone while at the grocery store or on the train to keep in touch with family, friends and work was the biggest concern.
• The connectedness of your network (the people kind, not technology) drives your mobile killer app. Because most folks use their phone primarily for voice, it continues to dominate. Email was important, too (not surprising for a Blackberry user, I suppose). And losing both essentially cut me off from the world.
• Mobile broadband access offset the pain. While whipping out my laptop and starting both its mobile broadband connection and Skype is a much bigger pain in the rear than using a phone, it was no less effective. As mobile broadband becomes more common, will multifunction devices (palmtops, tablet PC’s) take some of the function of mobile phones? (Or is it vice versa?)
• My phone also serves as my main address book. And, apparently, I don’t know anyone’s phone number anymore.
• My productivity didn’t change. This surprised me more than anything. Most people - me included - assumed I’d get more done while disconnected. And while I did catch up on some (print) reading, I spent so much time looking for network connections or landlines or phone numbers or email addresses I that I couldn’t get other things done near so quickly or easily as usual. The lack of interruption made it easier to accomplish a single task. But managing the myriad moments of my day suffered massively.

It’s becoming popular to declare the mobile web dead in the water. I disagree. As your network - or your customers’ - starts using their mobile device for data as much as voice, expect that adoption to grow. We’re only just starting to see the birth of innovative mobile apps, be they Slifter, WorldMate or social tools like Facebook and Twitter. Google CEO Eric Schmidt thinks mobile advertising is set to explode. Mobile devices have achieved faster penetration than any prior technology. Give them a little time and they’re likely to change the world. Just like they’ve changed mine.

What’s the longest you’ve had to go without your mobile device? How did you manage? Tell us about it in the comments.

Robert Gorell at GrokDotCom links to an interesting study today about opt-in vs. opt-out forms. It seems the best way to get your customers to opt-in is to require them to specifically opt out. But, commenter Troy hits it on the head when he asks, how many know they’ve opted in. As noted a few days ago, spam is what your customers think it is. There’s nothing wrong with making your forms opt out. Just make sure you’re clear on what your customers are opting out of.