Evolutionary Ideas: Unlocking ancient innovation to solve tomorrow's challenges

by Sam Tatam, Rory Sutherland (Introduction)

Overview

When faced with new challenges, it’s easy to feel our solutions need to be equally unprecedented. We think we need a revolution. But what if this is a big mistake?

In Evolutionary Ideas, Sam Tatam shows how behavioural science and evolutionary psychology can help us solve tomorrow’s challenges, not by divining something the world has never seen, but by borrowing from yesterday’s solutions – often in the most unexpected ways.

Just as millions of years of evolution have helped craft the wing and dorsal fin, thousands of engineers, designers, marketers and advertisers have toiled to solve many of the problems you face today. Over time, through intent, design, social learning and sheer luck, we have found what works.

Armed with an enhanced ability to see these patterns in human innovation, we can now systematically approach the creative process to develop more effective ideas more readily and rapidly.

In the same way Japanese engineers reduced bullet train noise by studying the evolved biology of the owl and kingfisher, today we can see how Disney improved the queueing experience in the same way Houston airport made arrivals feel faster (while making people walk further). We’ll learn how the chocolate at the bottom of a Cornetto ice cream can improve an Error 404 message, and what a bowl of M&Ms has in common with a canary in a coal mine.

These are Evolutionary Ideas.

Exploring five of the most critical challenges we face today, we learn how to ‘breed’ more effective solutions from those that have survived. The result is a dynamic and exciting way of solving problems and supercharging creativity – for anyone in any endeavour.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780857197870
Publisher:	Harriman House
Publication date:	05/10/2022
Pages:	326
Sales rank:	1,098,480
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Sam Tatam is Global Head of Behavioural Science at Ogilvy. His passion is understanding human behaviour, and his experience comes from organisational/industrial psychology and advertising strategy.

From New York to Nairobi, Sam has led behaviour change projects across virtually every category and continent. Today, he leads a global team of talented psychologists and behavioural economists to develop interventions and shape the communications of some of the world's most influential brands and organisations.

Table of Contents

Foreword Rory Sutherland xi

Prologue xix

Introduction 1

Part 1 Getting the Tools 17

Chapter 1 Swapping Spiders for Sweets 19

Chapter 2 Innovation Impossible 31

Chapter 3 The Quick and the Dead 41

Chapter 4 Seeing with New Eyes 50

Chapter 5 Psychological TRIZ 56

Part 2 Applying the Tools 75

Contradiction 1 Reinforcing Trust Without Altering the Truth 77

Chapter 6 Talk Is Cheap 78

Chapter 7 If It Looks Like a Duck 83

Chapter 8 I'll Believe It When I See It 98

Chapter 9 Safety in Numbers 109

Contradiction 2 Aiding Decisions Without Limiting Choice 119

Chapter 10 Spoilt for Choice 120

Chapter 11 Go with the Flow 126

Chapter 12 Easy Peasy, Lemon Squeezy 135

Chapter 13 One Step at a Time 150

Contradiction 3 Triggering Action Without Forcing a Response 159

Chapter 14 Invisible Strings 160

Chapter 15 Fits like a Glove 165

Chapter 16 "Marco…" 173

Chapter 17 Dig Your Heels In 179

Contradiction 4 Boosting Loyalty Without Increasing Rewards 189

Chapter 18 Together for the Kids 190

Chapter 19 I Am My Word 194

Chapter 20 So Close I Can Smell It 206

Chapter 21 You Win Some, You Lose Some 211

Contradiction 5 Improving Experiences Without Changing Their Duration 219

Chapter 22 Brain Time 220

Chapter 23 Better the Devil You Know 226

Chapter 24 Time Flies When You're Having Fun 242

Chapter 25 All's Well That Ends Well 250

Part 3 Conclusion 267

Chapter 26 New Eyes 269

Evolutionary Ideas 278

Innovation Checklist 279

Acknowledgements 287

Image Attributions 289

Endnotes 293

Index 322

About the Author 326