Hvad vi har her er en elektronisk cigaret. Det er noget der, siden den blev opfundet for et år eller to siden, har givet mig usigelig glæde. (Latter) En smule af det, tror jeg, er nikotin, men der er noget meget større end det. Som er, at siden de i Storbritannien forbød rygning på offentlige steder, har jeg ikke nydt et cocktail party igen. (Latter) Og grunden til det, regnede jeg først ud forleden, hvilket er, at når man tager til et cocktail party og man bare står op og holder et glas rødvin og man snakker uophørligt med folk, vil man ikke bruge al tiden på at snakke. Det er virkelig, virkelig trættende. Nogen gange vil man bare stå der i stilhed, alene med ens tanker. Nogen gange vil man bare stå i hjørnet og stirre ud af vinduet. Problemet er, når man ikke må ryge, og hvis man står og stirrer ud af vinduet for sig selv, er man en asocial, venneløs idiot. (Latter) Hvis man stirrer ud af vinduet for sig selv, med en cigaret, er man en forbandet filosof. (Latter) (Bifald)
What you have here is an electronic cigarette. It's something that, since it was invented a year or two ago, has given me untold happiness. (Laughter) A little bit of it, I think, is the nicotine, but there's something much bigger than that; which is, ever since, in the UK, they banned smoking in public places, I've never enjoyed a drinks party ever again. (Laughter) And the reason, I only worked out just the other day, which is: when you go to a drinks party and you stand up and hold a glass of red wine and you talk endlessly to people, you don't actually want to spend all the time talking. It's really, really tiring. Sometimes you just want to stand there silently, alone with your thoughts. Sometimes you just want to stand in the corner and stare out of the window. Now the problem is, when you can't smoke, if you stand and stare out of the window on your own, you're an antisocial, friendless idiot. (Laughter) If you stand and stare out of the window on your own with a cigarette, you're a fucking philosopher. (Laughter) (Applause)
Så styrken ved at omfortolke ting kan ikke blive overdrevet. Det vi har, er den præcis samme ting, den samme aktivitet, men en af dem får dig til at føle dig fantastisk og den anden, med blot en lille ændring i kropsholdningen, får dig til at føle dig forfærdelig. Og jeg tror det er et af problemerne ved klassisk økonomi er at det er total optaget af virkeligheden. Og virkeligheden er ikke en speciel god guide til menneskelig lykke. Hvorfor er, for eksempel, pensionister meget mere lykkelige end de unge arbejdsløse? Begge er, trods alt, i præcis det samme stadie i deres liv. Begge har for meget tid til overs og ikke for mange penge. Men pensionister er angiveligt meget, meget lykkelige, hvorimod de arbejdsløse er ulykkelige og deprimerede. Grunden, tror jeg, er at pensionister mener de har valgt at være pensionister, mens de unge arbejdsløse føler at det er noget de er blevet påtvunget.
So the power of reframing things cannot be overstated. What we have is exactly the same thing, the same activity, but one of them makes you feel great and the other one, with just a small change of posture, makes you feel terrible. And I think one of the problems with classical economics is, it's absolutely preoccupied with reality. And reality isn't a particularly good guide to human happiness. Why, for example, are pensioners much happier than the young unemployed? Both of them, after all, are in exactly the same stage of life. You both have too much time on your hands and not much money. But pensioners are reportedly very, very happy, whereas the unemployed are extraordinarily unhappy and depressed. The reason, I think, is that the pensioners believe they've chosen to be pensioners, whereas the young unemployed feel it's been thrust upon them.
I England har den højere middelklasse løst dette problem helt perfekt, fordi de har re-branded arbejdsløshed. Hvis man er en person i den højere middel klasse i England, kalder man arbejdsløshed "et sabbatår". (Latter) Og det er fordi, at hvis man har en søn der er arbejdsløs i Manchester, er det ret pinligt, men at have en søn der er arbejdsløs i Thailand er faktisk set som en stor bedrift. (Latter) Men faktisk er styrken ved at re-brande ting -- til at forstå at vores oplevelser, udgifter, ting faktisk ikke er afhængige af hvad de i virkeligheden er, men af hvordan vi ser dem -- jeg tror oprigtigt, at det ikke kan overdrives.
In England, the upper-middle classes have actually solved this problem perfectly, because they've re-branded unemployment. If you're an upper-middle-class English person, you call unemployment "a year off." (Laughter) And that's because having a son who's unemployed in Manchester is really quite embarrassing. But having a son who's unemployed in Thailand is really viewed as quite an accomplishment. (Laughter) But actually, the power to re-brand things -- to understand that our experiences, costs, things don't actually much depend on what they really are, but on how we view them -- I genuinely think can't be overstated.
Der er et eksperiment som jeg tror Daniel Pink refererer til hvor man sætter to hunde i en kasse og kassen har et elektrisk gulv. Ind i mellem bliver der sat elektrisk stød til gulvet som smerter hundene. Den eneste forskel er, at en af hundene har en lille knap på sin halvdel af gulvet. Og når den gnubber knappen, stopper de elektriske stød. Den anden hund har ikke den knap. Den er udsat for præcis den samme mængde smerte som hunden i den første kasse, men den har ikke nogen kontrol over omstændighederne. Generelt kan den første hund være relativt tilfreds. Den anden hund falder ned i fuldkommen depression.
There's an experiment I think Daniel Pink refers to, where you put two dogs in a box and the box has an electric floor. Every now and then, an electric shock is applied to the floor, which pains the dogs. The only difference is one of the dogs has a small button in its half of the box. And when it nuzzles the button, the electric shock stops. The other dog doesn't have the button. It's exposed to exactly the same level of pain as the dog in the first box, but it has no control over the circumstances. Generally, the first dog can be relatively content. The second dog lapses into complete depression.
Omstændighederne i vores liv kan faktisk have mindre indflydelse på vores lykke end følelsen af kontrol vi føler over vores liv. Det er et interessant spørgsmål. Vi stiller spørgsmålet -- hele debatten i den vestlige verden handler om graden af beskatning. Men jeg tror der er en anden debat der skal spørges til, hvilket er graden af kontrol vi har over vores skattepenge. Det der koster os 10 pund i en sammenhæng kan være en forbandelse. Det der koster os 10 pund i en anden sammenhæng kan vi måske hilse velkommen. I ved, betal 20.000 pund i skat til sundhed og man føler sig egentlig bare overfaldet. Betal 20.000 pund til at udstyre en hospitals afdeling, og man bliver kaldet en filantrop. Jeg er sandsynligvis i det forkerte land, når jeg taler om villigheden til at betale skat. (Latter)
The circumstances of our lives may actually matter less to our happiness than the sense of control we feel over our lives. It's an interesting question. We ask the question -- the whole debate in the Western world is about the level of taxation. But I think there's another debate to be asked, which is the level of control we have over our tax money, that what costs us 10 pounds in one context can be a curse; what costs us 10 pounds in a different context, we may actually welcome. You know, pay 20,000 pounds in tax toward health, and you're merely feeling a mug. Pay 20,000 pounds to endow a hospital ward, and you're called a philanthropist. I'm probably in the wrong country to talk about willingness to pay tax. (Laughter)
Så jeg giver jer et andet eksempel. Hvordan man formulerer ting betyder meget. Kalder man det en redningsaktion af Grækenland, eller en redningsaktion af en masse dumme banker, der lånte penge til Grækenland? Fordi de er faktisk den samme ting. Hvad man kalder dem, påvirker faktisk hvordan man reagerer på dem, følelsesmæssigt og moralt. Jeg synes, at psykologisk værdi er fantastisk, hvis jeg skal være helt ærlig. En af mine gode venner, en professor ved navn Nick Chater, der er professor ved Beslutningsvidenskab i London, mener at vi burde bruge væsentlig mindre tid på at kigge ind i menneskets skjulte dybder, og bruge meget mere tid på at udforske det skjulte i lavvandet. Jeg mener faktisk det er sandt. Jeg mener, at indtryk har en kæmpe effekt på hvad vi tænker og hvad vi gør. Men hvad vi ikke har, er en rigtig god model af menneskelig psykologi. I det mindste pre-Kahneman måske, havde vi ikke en rigtig god model af menneskelig psykologi til at sætte ved siden af modeller af ingeniørvidenskab, af neoklassisk økonomi.
So I'll give you one in return: how you frame things really matters. Do you call it "The bailout of Greece"? Or "The bailout of a load of stupid banks which lent to Greece"? (Laughter) Because they are actually the same thing. What you call them actually affects how you react to them, viscerally and morally. I think psychological value is great, to be absolutely honest. One of my great friends, a professor called Nick Chater, who's the Professor of Decision Sciences in London, believes we should spend far less time looking into humanity's hidden depths, and spend much more time exploring the hidden shallows. I think that's true, actually. I think impressions have an insane effect on what we think and what we do. But what we don't have is a really good model of human psychology -- at least pre-Kahneman, perhaps, we didn't have a really good model of human psychology to put alongside models of engineering, of neoclassical economics.
Så folk der troede på psykologiske løsninger havde ikke en model. Vi havde ikke en struktur. Det er hvad Warren Buffet's forretningspartner, Charlie Munger, kalder "et tremmeværk som man kan hænge sine ideer på". Ingeniører, økonomer, klassiske økonomer havde alle et eksisterende meget, meget robust tremmeværk som praktisk talt alle ideer kunne hænges op på. Vi har kun en samling tilfældige individuelle indsigter uden en overordnet model. Og det betyder, at når man kigger på løsninger, har vi formentlig givet for høj en prioritet til hvad jeg kalder fagteknisk ingeniørvidenskabelige løsninger, Newtonske løsninger, og ikke tæt på at være nok, i forhold til de psykologiske.
So people who believed in psychological solutions didn't have a model. We didn't have a framework. This is what Warren Buffett's business partner Charlie Munger calls "a latticework on which to hang your ideas." Engineers, economists, classical economists all had a very, very robust existing latticework on which practically every idea could be hung. We merely have a collection of random individual insights without an overall model. And what that means is that, in looking at solutions, we've probably given too much priority to what I call technical engineering solutions, Newtonian solutions, and not nearly enough to the psychological ones.
I kender mit eksempel omkring Eurostar. Seks millioner pund blev brugt til at reducere rejsetiden mellem Paris og London med omkring 40 minutter. For 0.01 procent af denne udgift, kunne man have installeret WiFi i togene, hvilket ikke ville have reduceret rejsens længde, men det ville have forbedret dens nydelse og dens anvendelighed betydeligt. For måske 10 procent af udgiften, kunne man have betalt alle verdens bedste mandlige og kvindelige supermodeller til at gå igennem toget og dele gratis Chateau Petrus til alle passagererne. Man ville stadig have 5 milliarder pund til overs,
You know my example of the Eurostar: six million pounds spent to reduce the journey time between Paris and London by about 40 minutes. For 0.01 percent of this money, you could have put wi-fi on the trains, which wouldn't have reduced the duration of the journey, but would have improved its enjoyment and its usefulness far more. For maybe 10 percent of the money, you could have paid all of the world's top male and female supermodels to walk up and down the train handing out free Château Pétrus to all the passengers. (Laughter)
og folk ville bede om, om togene kunne sætte farten ned. (Latter)
You'd still have five million pounds in change, and people would ask for the trains to be slowed down. (Laughter)
Hvorfor blev vi ikke tilbudt at løse problemet psykologisk? Jeg tror det er fordi der er en ubalance, en asymmetri, i måden vi behandler kreative, følelsesdrevne psykologiske ideer kontra måden vi behandler rationelle, talmæssig regnearksdrevne ideer. Hvis man er en kreativ person, tror jeg med god grund, at man skal dele alle sine ideer til godkendelse med folk der er meget mere rationelle end en selv. Man skal gå ind og lave en cost-benefit analyse, en forundersøgelse, en investeringsafkast analyse og så videre. Og jeg mener det formentlig er rigtigt. Men dette gælder ikke den anden vej rundt. Folk der har en eksisterende struktur, en økonomisk struktur, en ingeniørvidenskabelig struktur, føler faktisk at logik er sit egen begrundelse. Hvad de ikke siger er, "Jamen, alle talene ser ud til at passe, men før jeg fremlægger denne ide, vil jeg vise den til nogle rigtig skøre mennesker, for at se om de kan finde på noget bedre". Så vi, kunstigt tror jeg, prioriterer hvad jeg kalder mekanistiske ideer frem for psykologiske ideer.
Why were we not given the chance to solve that problem psychologically? I think it's because there's an imbalance, an asymmetry in the way we treat creative, emotionally driven psychological ideas versus the way we treat rational, numerical, spreadsheet-driven ideas. If you're a creative person, I think, quite rightly, you have to share all your ideas for approval with people much more rational than you. You have to go in and have a cost-benefit analysis, a feasibility study, an ROI study and so forth. And I think that's probably right. But this does not apply the other way around. People who have an existing framework -- an economic framework, an engineering framework -- feel that, actually, logic is its own answer. What they don't say is, "Well, the numbers all seem to add up, but before I present this idea, I'll show it to some really crazy people to see if they can come up with something better." And so we -- artificially, I think -- prioritize what I'd call mechanistic ideas over psychological ideas.
Et eksempel på en stor psykologisk ide: Den bedste forbedring i passager tilfredshed i metroen i London per pund, kom ikke da de tilføjede ekstra toge eller ændrede hyppigheden på togene, de satte prikmatrix display tavler på perronerne. Fordi ventetidens karakter ikke kun er afhængig dens numeriske kvalitet, dens varighed, men graden af usikkerhed man oplever, imens man venter. At vente syv minutter på et tog med et nedtællingsur er mindre frustrerende og irriterende end at vente fire minutter, neglebidende og føle, "Hvornår kommer det forbandede tog?"
An example of a great psychological idea: the single best improvement in passenger satisfaction on the London Underground, per pound spent, came when they didn't add any extra trains, nor change the frequency of the trains; they put dot matrix display boards on the platforms -- because the nature of a wait is not just dependent on its numerical quality, its duration, but on the level of uncertainty you experience during that wait. Waiting seven minutes for a train with a countdown clock is less frustrating and irritating than waiting four minutes, knuckle biting, going, "When's this train going to damn well arrive?"
Her er et smukt eksempel på en psykologisk løsning der bruges i Korea. Røde trafiklys har en nedtællingsviser. Det er bevist i forsøg, at det reducerer hyppigheden af ulykker. Hvorfor? Fordi road rage, utålmodighed og generel irritation bliver massivt reduceret når man faktisk kan se hvor lang tid man skal vente. I Kina, uden egentlig at kunne forstå princippet bag dette, brugte de det samme princip på grønne trafiklys. (Latter) Hvilket ikke er en god ide. Man er 200 meter væk, man ser der kun er fem sekunder tilbage, så giver man fuld gas. (Latter) Koreanerne testede, meget ihærdigt, begge dele. Hyppigheden af ulykker falder når man bruger dette på røde trafiklys; den stiger når man bruger det på grønne trafiklys.
Here's a beautiful example of a psychological solution deployed in Korea. Red traffic lights have a countdown delay. It's proven to reduce the accident rate in experiments. Why? Because road rage, impatience and general irritation are massively reduced when you can actually see the time you have to wait. In China, not really understanding the principle behind this, they applied the same principle to green traffic lights -- (Laughter) which isn't a great idea. You're 200 yards away, you realize you've got five seconds to go, you floor it. (Laughter) The Koreans, very assiduously, did test both. The accident rate goes down when you apply this to red traffic lights;
Det eneste jeg egentlig beder om, ved menneskelig beslutningstagning er at disse tre ting bliver taget i betragtning. Jeg beder ikke om fuldstændig forrang af den ene frem for den anden. Jeg siger kun, at når man løser problemer, bør man kigge på disse tre, på lige vilkår og man bør så vidt som muligt prøve på at finde løsninger der sidder i smørhullet, lige i midten.
it goes up when you apply it to green traffic lights. This is all I'm asking for, really, in human decision making, is the consideration of these three things. I'm not asking for the complete primacy of one over the other. I'm merely saying that when you solve problems, you should look at all three of these equally, and you should seek as far as possible
Hvis man egentlig kigger på en god virksomhed, vil man næsten altid se at disse tre ting vil forekomme. Virkelig, virkelig succesfulde virksomheder -- Google er en stor, stor teknologisk succes, men det er også baseret på en rigtig god psykologisk indsigt: Mennesker tror at noget der kun gør én ting, er bedre end noget der gør den ting og noget andet. Det er en instinktiv ting kaldet målsætningsfortynding. Ayelet Fishback har skrevet en artikel omkring dette.
to find solutions which sit in the sweet spot in the middle. If you actually look at a great business, you'll nearly always see all of these three things coming into play. Really successful businesses -- Google is a great, great technological success, but it's also based on a very good psychological insight: people believe something that only does one thing is better at that thing than something that does that thing and something else. It's an innate thing called "goal dilution." Ayelet Fishbach has written a paper about this.
Samtidig med Google, prøvede alle andre, mere eller mindre, at være en portal. Ja, der er en søgefunktion, men der er også vejrudsigt, sportsresultater, lidt nyheder. Google forstod at hvis man kun er en søgemaskine, antager mennesker, at man er en meget, meget god søgemaskine. I kan alle genkende det fra når I er ude og købe et fjernsyn. Og i den lurvede ende af rækker med fladskærme kan man se en ret foragtet ting kaldet en kombineret tv og dvdafspiller. Og vi har ikke nogen anelse om, hvordan kvalitet af disse ting er, men vi kigger på et kombineret tv og dvdafspiller, og vi siger, "Uck. Det er sikkert et ret dårligt tv og en ret elendig dvdafspiller". Så vi går ud af butikken med en af hver. Google er lige så meget en psykologisk succes, som en teknologisk .
Everybody else at the time of Google, more or less, was trying to be a portal. Yes, there's a search function, but you also have weather, sports scores, bits of news. Google understood that if you're just a search engine, people assume you're a very, very good search engine. All of you know this, actually, from when you go in to buy a television, and in the shabbier end of the row of flat-screen TVs, you can see, are these rather despised things called "combined TV and DVD players." And we have no knowledge whatsoever of the quality of those things, but we look at a combined TV and DVD player and we go, "Uck. It's probably a bit of a crap telly and a bit rubbish as a DVD player." So we walk out of the shops with one of each. Google is as much a psychological success as it is a technological one.
Jeg foreslår, at vi kan bruge psykologi til at løse nogle problemer som vi ikke engang troede var problemer. Dette er mit forslag til at få folk til at færdiggøre deres antibiotika behandling. Lad være med at give dem 24 hvide piller. Giv dem 18 hvide piller og seks blå, og fortæl dem at de skal tage de hvide piller først, og derefter de blå. Det kaldes chunking. Sandsynligheden for at folk vil nå at færdiggøre det, er meget større når der er delmål et sted i midten.
I propose that we can use psychology to solve problems that we didn't even realize were problems at all. This is my suggestion for getting people to finish their course of antibiotics. Don't give them 24 white pills; give them 18 white pills and six blue ones and tell them to take the white pills first, and then take the blue ones. It's called "chunking." The likelihood that people will get to the end is much greater
En af de store fejltagelser, tror jeg, i økonomi er at det ikke formår at forstå, hvad noget er, hvad enten det er pensionering, arbejdsløshed, udgifter er en funktion, ikke kun af dens sum, men også dens betydning.
when there is a milestone somewhere in the middle. One of the great mistakes, I think, of economics is it fails to understand that what something is -- whether it's retirement, unemployment, cost -- is a function, not only of its amount, but also its meaning.
Det her er en afgiftsanlæg i Storbritannien. Der kommer ret ofte køer ved anlæggene. Nogen gange er der meget, meget lange køer. Man kunne bruge det samme princip faktisk, hvis du vil, som ved sikkerhedskontrollen i lufthavnen. Hvad ville der ske hvis man kunne betale dobbelt så mange penge for at komme over broen, men køre gennem en vejbane der er et hurtigvejbane? Det er ikke en urimelig ting at gøre. Det er en økonomisk effektiv ting at gøre. Tid betyder mere for nogle mennesker end andre. Hvis man prøver at nå en jobsamtale, ville man tydeligvis betale et par pund ekstra, for at køre i den hurtige vejbane. Hvis man er på vej for at besøge sin svigermor, ville man nok foretrække at holde sig til venstre.
This is a toll crossing in Britain. Quite often queues happen at the tolls. Sometimes you get very, very severe queues. You could apply the same principle, actually, to the security lanes in airports. What would happen if you could actually pay twice as much money to cross the bridge, but go through a lane that's an express lane? It's not an unreasonable thing to do; it's an economically efficient thing to do. Time means more to some people than others. If you're waiting trying to get to a job interview, you'd patently pay a couple of pounds more to go through the fast lane. If you're on the way to visit your mother-in-law, you'd probably prefer --
(Laughter)
Det eneste problem er, hvis man introducerer denne økonomisk effektive løsning, hader folk den. Fordi de tror man med vilje skaber forsinkelse ved broen for at maksimere ens indtægt, og "Hvorfor skulle jeg betale for at subsidiere din inkompetence?" På den anden side, ændr udformningen lidt og lav en velgørenhedsafkast administration, så de ekstra penge man får ikke går til selskabet der ejer broen, det går til velgørenhed, og den mentale villighed til at betale ændres fuldstændig. Man har en relativt effektiv økonomisk løsning, men en der faktisk imødekommer den offentlige billigelse og endda en lille grad af kærlighed, i stedet for at blive set som en skiderik.
you'd probably prefer to stay on the left. The only problem is if you introduce this economically efficient solution, people hate it ... because they think you're deliberately creating delays at the bridge in order to maximize your revenue, and, "Why on earth should I pay to subsidize your incompetence?" On the other hand, change the frame slightly and create charitable yield management, so the extra money you get goes not to the bridge company, it goes to charity ... and the mental willingness to pay completely changes. You have a relatively economically efficient solution, but one that actually meets with public approval and even a small degree of affection, rather than being seen as bastardy.
Så der hvor økonomerne begår en fundamental fejltagelse er, at de tror at penge er penge. Faktisk opleves min smerte ved at betale fem pund ikke kun proportionalt med beløbet, men hvad jeg tror pengene går til. Og jeg tror, at forståelsen af dette, kunne revolutionere skattepolitik. Det kunne revolutionere den offentlige administration. Det kunne virkelig ændre ting betydeligt.
So where economists make the fundamental mistake is they think that money is money. Actually, my pain experienced in paying five pounds is not just proportionate to the amount, but where I think that money is going. And I think understanding that could revolutionize tax policy. It could revolutionize the public services. It could actually change things quite significantly.
Her er en fyr I alle bør studere. Han er en økonom fra den østrigske skole, der var aktiv i den første halvdel af det tyvende århundrede i Wien. Hvad der var interessant omkring den østrigske skole var, at de faktisk voksede op sideløbende med Freud. Så de er overvejende interesserede i psykologi. De mente, at der var en disciplin kaldet praxeologi, som er en tidligere disciplin i at studere økonomi. Praxeologi er studiet af menneskelige valg, handling og beslutningstagning. Jeg mener de har ret. Jeg tror, at faren vi har i nutidens verden er at vi har økonomistudier der ser sig selv som en tidligere disciplin i at studere den menneskelige psykologi. Men som Charlie Munger siger, "Hvis økonomi ikke er adfærdsbestemt, så ved jeg ikke hvad den er."
[Ludwig Von Mises is my hero.] Here's a guy you all need to study. He's an Austrian School economist who was first active in the first half of the 20th century in Vienna. What was interesting about the Austrian School is they actually grew up alongside Freud. And so they're predominantly interested in psychology. They believed that there was a discipline called praxeology, which is a prior discipline to the study of economics. Praxeology is the study of human choice, action and decision-making. I think they're right. I think the danger we have in today's world is we have the study of economics considers itself to be a prior discipline to the study of human psychology. But as Charlie Munger says, "If economics isn't behavioral, I don't know what the hell is."
Von Mises, interessant nok, mener at økonomi bare er en underdel af psykologi. Jeg mener, at han bare refererer til økonomi som "studiet af menneskelig praxeologi i mangelsituationer." Men von Mises, blandt mange andre, tror jeg bruger en analogi, der formentlig er den bedste begrundelse og forklaring på værdien af marketing, værdien af den opfattede værdi og faktummet at vi faktisk burde behandle det som værende den absolutte ækvivalent til enhver anden slags værdi.
Von Mises, interestingly, believes economics is just a subset of psychology. I think he just refers to economics as "the study of human praxeology under conditions of scarcity." But Von Mises, among many other things, I think uses an analogy which is probably the best justification and explanation for the value of marketing, the value of perceived value and the fact that we should treat it as being absolutely equivalent to any other kind of value.
Vi har en tendens til, vi alle har -- selv os der arbejder med marketing -- til at tænke på værdi på to måder. Der er en rigtige værdi, som er når man laver noget i en fabrik og når man yder en service, og så er der en tvivlsom værdi, som man laver ved at ændre måden hvorpå folk opfatter ting. Von Mises afviser denne skelnen fuldstændig. Og han bruger denne analogi. Han refererede faktisk til nogle mærkelige økonomer kaldet de Franske Fysiokrater, der mente at den eneste sande værdi er hvad man udvinder af jorden. Så hvis man er en fårehyrde eller arbejder i et stenbrud eller er landmand, skaber man ægte værdi. Hvis derimod, man køber noget uld af fårehyrden, og tager en merpris for at omdanne det til en hat, så skaber man faktisk ikke en værdi, man udnytter fårehyrden.
We tend to, all of us, even those of us who work in marketing, think of value in two ways: the real value, which is when you make something in a factory or provide a service, and then there's a dubious value, which you create by changing the way people look at things. Von Mises completely rejected this distinction. And he used this following analogy: he referred to strange economists called the French physiocrats, who believed that the only true value was what you extracted from the land. So if you're a shepherd or a quarryman or a farmer, you created true value. If however, you bought some wool from the shepherd and charged a premium for converting it into a hat, you weren't actually creating value, you were exploiting the shepherd.
Men von Mises sagde, at moderne økonomer begår præcis den samme fejltagelse med hensyn til annoncering og marketing. Han siger, at hvis man har en restaurant, er der ikke nogen fornuftig skelnen mellem værdien man skaber ved at lave maden og værdien man skaber ved at feje gulvet. En af dem skaber, måske, det primære produkt den ting vi tror vi betaler for -- den anden skaber en kontekst hvori vi kan nyde og værdsætte det produkt. Og ideen om at den ene skulle have en fortrinsret frem for den anden er fundamental forkert.
Now, Von Mises said that modern economists make exactly the same mistake with regard to advertising and marketing. He says if you run a restaurant, there is no healthy distinction to be made between the value you create by cooking the food and the value you create by sweeping the floor. One of them creates, perhaps, the primary product -- the thing we think we're paying for -- the other one creates a context within which we can enjoy and appreciate that product. And the idea that one of them should have priority over the other is fundamentally wrong.
Prøv at udføre dette hurtige tankeeksperiment. Forestil Jer en restaurant der serverer Michelinstjernet mad, men hvor restauranten lugter af kloak og der er menneskelig afføring på gulvet. Det bedste man kan gøre der for at skabe værdi, er ikke at forbedre maden yderligere, det er at fjerne lugten og gøre gulvet rent. Og det er meget vigtigt at vi forstår dette.
Try this quick thought experiment: imagine a restaurant that serves Michelin-starred food, but where the restaurant smells of sewage and there's human feces on the floor. (Laughter) The best thing you can do there to create value is not actually to improve the food still further, it's to get rid of the smell and clean up the floor. And it's vital we understand this.
Hvis det virker som en ting der er mærkelig og svær at forstå, i Storbritannien, havde postvæsnet en succesrate på 98 procent med at aflevere a-post dagen efter. De besluttede sig for, at dette ikke var godt nok og de ville bringe det op på 99 procent. Indsatsen med at gøre dette, ødelagde næsten organisationen. Hvis man på samme tidspunkt havde spurgt folk, "Hvor stor en procentdel af a-posten bliver afleveret dagen efter?" ville det gennemsnitlige svar have været mellem 50 og 60 procent. Men hvis ens opfattelse er meget værre end ens virkelighed, hvad i al verden er man så i gang med, når man prøver at ændre virkeligheden? Det er ligesom at prøve at forbedre maden i en restaurant der stinker. Hvad men bør gøre er først og fremmest at fortælle folk at 98 procent af posten bliver afleveret dagen efter, a-posten. Det er temmelig godt. Jeg vil hævde, at der i Storbritannien er en meget bedre referenceramme, hvilket er at fortælle folk at der bliver afleveret mere a-post dagen efter, i Storbritannien end i Tyskland. Fordi generelt, hvis man vil gøre os glade for noget i Storbritannien, så bare fortæl os at vi gør noget bedre end tyskerne. (Latter) (Bifald)
If that seems like a sort of strange, abstruse thing -- in the UK, the post office had a 98 percent success rate at delivering first-class mail the next day. They decided this wasn't good enough, and they wanted to get it up to 99. The effort to do that almost broke the organization. If, at the same time, you'd gone and asked people, "What percentage of first-class mail arrives the next day?" the average answer, or the modal answer, would have been "50 to 60 percent." Now, if your perception is much worse than your reality, what on earth are you doing trying to change the reality? That's like trying to improve the food in a restaurant that stinks. What you need to do is, first of all, tell people that 98 percent of first-class mail gets there the next day. That's pretty good. I would argue, in Britain, there's a much better frame of reference, which is to tell people that more first-class mail arrives the next day in the UK than in Germany, because generally, in Britain, if you want to make us happy about something, just tell us we do it better than the Germans. (Laughter) (Applause)
Vælg din referenceramme og den opfattede værdi og derfor er den faktiske værdi fuldstændig forvandlet. Det skal siges om tyskerne, at tyskerne og franskmændene gør et glimrende stykke arbejde med at skabe et forenet Europa. Det eneste de ikke forventer, er at de forener Europa gennem et mildt fælles had til franskmændene og tyskerne. Men jeg er britisk, og det er sådan vi kan lide det.
Choose your frame of reference and the perceived value, and therefore, the actual value is completely transformed. It has to be said of the Germans that the Germans and the French are doing a brilliant job of creating a united Europe. The only thing they didn't expect is they're uniting Europe through a shared mild hatred of the French and Germans. But I'm British; that's the way we like it.
Hvad man også vil se er, at i enhver sammenhæng er vores opfattelse hullet.
(Laughter)
Vi kan ikke se forskellen mellem fødevarekvaliteten, og omgivelserne hvori vi fortærer det. I vil allesammen have set dette fænomen hvis man får sin bil vasket eller parkeret. Når man kører væk, føles det som om bilen kører bedre. Og grunden til dette er,
What you'll also notice is that, in any case, our perception is leaky. We can't tell the difference between the quality of the food and the environment in which we consume it. All of you will have seen this phenomenon if you have your car washed or valeted. When you drive away, your car feels as if it drives better.
medmindre min parkeringstjener på mystisk vis skifter olien og udfører et stykke arbejde som jeg ikke betaler ham for, og som jeg er uvidende om, fordi opfattelsen under alle omstændigheder er hullet.
(Laughter) And the reason for this -- unless my car valet mysteriously is changing the oil and performing work which I'm not paying him for and I'm unaware of --
Smertestillende medicin der har et bestemt mærke, er mere effektive til at reducere smerte, end smertestillende medicin der ikke har et brand. Jeg mener ikke kun gennem berettet smertereduktion, men reel målt smertereduktion. Så opfattelsen er faktisk hullet under alle omstændigheder. Så hvis man gør noget der er forkert opfattelsesmæssigt i en sammenhæng, kan man beskadige den anden. Mange tak.
is because perception is, in any case, leaky. Analgesics that are branded are more effective at reducing pain than analgesics that are not branded. I don't just mean through reported pain reduction -- actual measured pain reduction. And so perception actually is leaky in any case. So if you do something that's perceptually bad in one respect, you can damage the other. Thank you very much.
(Bifald)
(Applause)