The Hindu Business Line : 'Welcome to ‘neurosociety'

Would it be possible: For marketers to use brain scans to determine consumer interest in a product, for politicians to target voters, and for employers to screen job candidates?

Possible, says The Naked Brain by Richard Restak ( www.crosswordbookstores.com). Welcome, therefore, to the ‘neurosociety’! It is already here.

Until recently, brain scientists studied the brain in isolation, “almost as if they were deconstructing a watch.” That is, “you simply remove the case – and then tinker with its component parts.” Our evolving knowledge about the brain has led to the new discipline of social neuroscience, the application of brain science to social interactions, explains the author.

He says that the traditional understanding of emotions and cognition, controlled and automatic processes, do not help resolve fundamental questions, such as: “What happens in my brain when I make an impulsive purchase? Or decide that a certain person is trustworthy? Or invest money in a stock after listening to a broker…”

Not to be missed, for your brain’s sake!

Defy common sense

Be Unreasonable
Paul Lemberg

When every other seller is cutting prices, it may seem logical to follow suit. No, don’t, says Paul Lemberg in Be Unreasonable ( www.tatamcgrawhill.com). “When you cut prices, you may make the sale, but your profits will sink like a rock in water,” he reasons.

Do the math, he urges, and with an example, he proves how a price cut of 20 per cent can cost you 67 per cent of your profits. “Price reductions tend to have a downward spiral effect on a business. The lower price often becomes the new price, and stays low.”

Instead of lowering your prices, try other approaches, suggests Lemberg. Making trade-offs is one such approach. “When prospects say, ‘I can’t pay what you’re asking,’ you say, ‘What part of my offer would you like me to remove so that we can drop the price?’ In other words, you’ll take less money, but the value you’re giving will be commensurately less.”

A book to buy which you shouldn’t be waiting for the annual sale.

‘Real’ advice

The Devil's Guide to Hollywood
Joe Eszterhas

One of the 19 lessons in The Devil’s Guide to Hollywood by Joe Eszterhas (www.landmarkon
thenet.com) is ‘Ideas are poison!’ Go outside the box, the lesson exhorts. “A film should have a beginning, a middle, and an end, but not necessarily in that order,” reads a quote of screenwriter/director Jean-Luc Godard cited in the book.

“To write the way real people talk, listen to the way real people talk,” advises Eszterhas. “Pretend you have a scanner in your head and, as people talk, imagine their words running across the screen, complete with punctuation marks, to ‘see’ the words more clearly.”

He says that his friend, a phone repairman in Los Angeles, “sits atop a telephone pole for hours every day listening to strangers’ conversations. He wants to be a screenwriter…”

Fun-filled.

D. Murali

http://BookPeek.blogspot.com

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