8 min
Rory-Sutherlanding the Kids & Smartphones Problem Antidoters Podcast
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- Philosophy
Entrepreneurs are optimists by nature and masters at turning problems into solutions. Many of the best harness counter-intuitive thinking that plays on human emotion rather than rationality - as best articulated by the Prince of behavioural interpretation (who may or may not appreciate being verbed). So how can we harness his antidoter ways of thinking to solve the teen smartphone problem? (or get him in a room with Jonathan Haidt for a brainstorm - I’ll make the tea and take notes).
My career has been shaped by seeking to fuel the innovations of optimists. It’s why I’ve invested the last three years at Sweatcoin, an exciting business which took the huge problem of our increasingly sedentary, unhealthy lifestyles and turned it into an opportunity. They believed (and have since proven with over 150M global users) that incentives and rewards can represent a paradigm shift in how we think about movement: the difference between choosing to stand on a moving-up escalator or walk up it; of taking the stairs rather than the lift or proactively getting off a bus a stop early. Each additional step = points which can be spent on a range of goods and services. It provides daily nudges that have the power to impact life-long behavioural change.
Thanks for reading Antidoters! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Ultimately, the Sweatcoin vision is to create a ‘movement economy’, one to rival the attention economy - but unlike the latter, offering a win-win for all, connecting brands and users in a marketplace of reward and benefit, with the potential to save the taxpayer billions on preventable diseases. (Type2 Diabetes costs the NHS £14Bn a year, >10% of its total budget and more than the police, fire and judicial system put together(!!). With news this week that diagnoses are up 39% for Under-40s in just 6 years, move more, people. Move more).
Being a small part of Sweatcoin’s success leads me to wonder how such incentive-led solutions might be harnessed for other problems I care about. Working closely with such do-ers also explains my frustration with the opportunity cost of so much navel-gazing social discourse and the negativity of tear-down strategies. Too many super-smart people get stuck in awareness-raising-mode (often misdirected by biased data) or rage, seeking to dismantle rather than build to take bites out of problems.
Rory Sutherland is the master of positive alchemy and counter-intuitive thinking. He wrote the book on it. He is one of the most erudite, amusing and potentially irritating podcast guests, with his hosts struggling to get a word in edgeways as he goes off on tangents of whimsical anecdotes to highlight insights into behavioural science E.g. here, here, here (lesson to podcasters: just let him rip).
He is particularly strong on how simple reframing can solve problems. E.g. repositioning the annoying bus that arrives to unload plane passengers as a VIP chauffeur direct to immigration to avoid the queues; how a fraction of the money earmarked for HS2 rail could have created greater opportunity if it went towards upgrading existing trains with greater comfort and reliable wifi for relaxation and deep work opportunities; or how the Uber live-map functionality is ‘a psychological moonshot’- not reducing waiting time but making it 90% less frustrating.
As an Ad-man, he frequently references the many brands that have successfully played with perceptions, turning weaknesses into strengths - think Guinness’s ‘good things come to those who wait’, Stella’s ‘reassuringly expensive’ or Marmite’s ‘love it or hate it’.
Some favourite quotes:
“Engineers, medical people, scientific people, have an obsession with solving the problems of reality, when actually … once you reach a basic level of wealth in society, most problems are actually problems of perception.”
“The skill you need to win an argument
Entrepreneurs are optimists by nature and masters at turning problems into solutions. Many of the best harness counter-intuitive thinking that plays on human emotion rather than rationality - as best articulated by the Prince of behavioural interpretation (who may or may not appreciate being verbed). So how can we harness his antidoter ways of thinking to solve the teen smartphone problem? (or get him in a room with Jonathan Haidt for a brainstorm - I’ll make the tea and take notes).
My career has been shaped by seeking to fuel the innovations of optimists. It’s why I’ve invested the last three years at Sweatcoin, an exciting business which took the huge problem of our increasingly sedentary, unhealthy lifestyles and turned it into an opportunity. They believed (and have since proven with over 150M global users) that incentives and rewards can represent a paradigm shift in how we think about movement: the difference between choosing to stand on a moving-up escalator or walk up it; of taking the stairs rather than the lift or proactively getting off a bus a stop early. Each additional step = points which can be spent on a range of goods and services. It provides daily nudges that have the power to impact life-long behavioural change.
Thanks for reading Antidoters! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Ultimately, the Sweatcoin vision is to create a ‘movement economy’, one to rival the attention economy - but unlike the latter, offering a win-win for all, connecting brands and users in a marketplace of reward and benefit, with the potential to save the taxpayer billions on preventable diseases. (Type2 Diabetes costs the NHS £14Bn a year, >10% of its total budget and more than the police, fire and judicial system put together(!!). With news this week that diagnoses are up 39% for Under-40s in just 6 years, move more, people. Move more).
Being a small part of Sweatcoin’s success leads me to wonder how such incentive-led solutions might be harnessed for other problems I care about. Working closely with such do-ers also explains my frustration with the opportunity cost of so much navel-gazing social discourse and the negativity of tear-down strategies. Too many super-smart people get stuck in awareness-raising-mode (often misdirected by biased data) or rage, seeking to dismantle rather than build to take bites out of problems.
Rory Sutherland is the master of positive alchemy and counter-intuitive thinking. He wrote the book on it. He is one of the most erudite, amusing and potentially irritating podcast guests, with his hosts struggling to get a word in edgeways as he goes off on tangents of whimsical anecdotes to highlight insights into behavioural science E.g. here, here, here (lesson to podcasters: just let him rip).
He is particularly strong on how simple reframing can solve problems. E.g. repositioning the annoying bus that arrives to unload plane passengers as a VIP chauffeur direct to immigration to avoid the queues; how a fraction of the money earmarked for HS2 rail could have created greater opportunity if it went towards upgrading existing trains with greater comfort and reliable wifi for relaxation and deep work opportunities; or how the Uber live-map functionality is ‘a psychological moonshot’- not reducing waiting time but making it 90% less frustrating.
As an Ad-man, he frequently references the many brands that have successfully played with perceptions, turning weaknesses into strengths - think Guinness’s ‘good things come to those who wait’, Stella’s ‘reassuringly expensive’ or Marmite’s ‘love it or hate it’.
Some favourite quotes:
“Engineers, medical people, scientific people, have an obsession with solving the problems of reality, when actually … once you reach a basic level of wealth in society, most problems are actually problems of perception.”
“The skill you need to win an argument
8 min