This Week in EID – Episode 9 Double Issue

This week I need to cover two weeks because I was traveling last week.  EID did not miss a beat because of the fantastic management of Keith Bujak.  But I wasn’t around to write up the recap here.

So here is what came out over the past two weeks:

Nature Nurture in Gender: The constant interaction between nature and nurture really fascinates me.  The genes are there, but then how to they get expressed?  And how does the expression change the wiring in the brain?  And how do genetic dispositions influence the way the changes roll out?  And on and on  . . .

All in One Devices: The only good thing about all-in-one-devices seems to be the blending of letters when trying to come up with a name.  Phablet.  Padphone. How about Laphabletch (laptop, phone, tablet, watch)?

Precrastination  I see precrastination all the time, and even do it sometimes.  But never knew it had a name.  

Crowdsourcing at Marriott: Hotels never seem to be on the cutting edge of technology, customer experience, or user engagement.  Maybe this example shows they can turn a corner.  

Privacy and Ambient Computing:  I suspect electronic monitoring will be controversial and constantly changing for many years.  The tradeoff is hard to resolve and each time a new technology comes out we have to rethink it from scratch.  Not exactly what government or law enforcement is good at.  

Ethics of False Nudging:  I love examples where behavior, ethics, and design come together.  This is a good one.  

What do our Facebook Likes say about us?  The infamous Target example made this possibility well known.  But I am always amazed at what these modeling algorithms can figure out.  Except when they can’t.  

College Students as Research Subjects I like this idea.  As soon as the second month of the semester rolls around, I don’t have to do any more research.  

Consumer Product Testing

I was asked to test out the new Schick Hydro 5 Groomer.  I think I am a good test case.  Not just because I have consumer product evaluation experience in my HF life, but I also shave very irregularly.  Sometimes I have one day of growth, and sometimes five.  I also have kind of a bony face that challenges a lot of the razors I use.  If the Schick can handle my face and habits, it has promise. 

I also plan to follow up with a blog about whether the fact that they sent me one for free has an unconscious influence on my review.  You wouldn’t think that a couple of bucks saved on a razor would make a difference, but the unconscious part makes it more powerful than you might otherwise expect.  There is also the endowment effect since now it is “my” razor.  If a razor can influence me, it adds evidence that when politicians assert that lobbying and campaign money doesn’t influence them is complete BS.  They might legitimately think it doesn’t (sometimes), but there are many studies with strong evidence that it does anyway.  I want to point my intuition, introspection, and metacognition at the influence and see what it feels like.  I doubt I will be lobbied anytime soon (except maybe by my students groveling for grades, but they don’t offer Caribbean speaking engagements), so this might be the closest I get.  

 Stay tuned.