Behavior cubed

Behavior: Since I have a child in college, I am not sure that I want him to see this, but those entrepreneurs and innovators are out there, creating new and better products. According to Bruce Schneier, the ones to lose in this battle of wits will likely be the innocent student who really does have the computer trash his paper.

Behavior: How do our parenting skills relate to the future of our children’s intellectual development?  Does Dr. Spock bear a lot of the blame?

Behavior: A new book,Yes!: 50 Scientifically Proven Ways to Be Persuasive by is pretty impressive. Here is one of my favorites:

How restaurant mints are a personalized affair. Let’s a say a restaurant provides mints for its customers on the way out. If the amount of tips per week is the baseline for that restaurant, let’s make the waiters include a mint as they give the check to the customer. The tips go up by 3.3%. However, when the waiters offer the mints themselves, prior to signing the check, the tipping amount went up by 14.1%. In yet another experiment, the waiter would present the patrons with 1 mint per guest, then give them the check, then turning around to leave, then, as if remembering something sudden, turning around and giving them yet another mint per guest. Result? 23% increase in tips, as this signaled high amount of personalization.