In last week's Search Insider, I introduced the idea of habits, and why they can be hard things to break. This week, I want to explore how search engines can be habit-forming as well. Cognitive Lock-In
My wife Jill was the victim of another drive-by “why-ing” — and I, of course, was the perpetrator. There’s a small specialty grocery store where we live that Jill visits every week or two. And almost every time, she complains about the experience. Outdated stock is repackaged. Food is rancid. The staff is surly. But she keeps buying there. After listening to another long-winded vent, I dared to go where no man should go. I asked her “why?” There were a number of reasons that she gave. It’s on the way on her daily route. Parking is convenient. Prices are low. But the biggest reason was one she didn’t express, because she didn’t know it. It had become a habit. And habits are tough things to break.
That's right. As you're reading this, let me be the first to tell you, you're hopelessly out of touch with the world according to Steve Jobs: “It doesn’t matter how good or bad the product is, the fact is that people don’t read anymore. 40% percent of the people in the U.S. read one book or less last year. The whole conception is flawed at the top because people don’t read anymore.”
The quote on the home page of SpaceTime is intriguing: "I think I've found a product that makes the Google interface look like it was designed by Apple." Rob Enderle, Enderle Group.
Yesterday, I had the tremendous privilege of moderating a Webinar with our Search 2010 Panel: Marissa Mayer from Google, Larry Cornett from Yahoo, Justin Osmer from Microsoft, Daniel Read from Ask, Jakob Nielsen from the Nielsen Norman Group, Chris Sherman from Search Engine Land and Greg Sterling from Sterling Market Intelligence.
It was a great conversation, and the full one hour Webinar is now available.
Anger is one of the less noble of human emotions. We tend to beat ourselves up when we get angry. After the emotion dies down, we feel a little foolish for losing control. As Ben Franklin said,
Visualization risked becoming another one of those clichéd words through the 90’s, because it was used by every self improvement guru as a path to success.
The more I dig, the more I’m convinced that a big part of a brand’s success is the quality of its customer touch points, specifically, the face to face ones. Consider this overwhelming evidence:
The more emotion there is in an experience, the more vividly we remember it. It’s known as imprinting. So if we have very positive or very negative experiences, we remember them longer and more completely.
Herbert Simon came up with some pretty interesting concepts, among them satisficing, bounded rationality and chunking.
