Ian Ayres Boeken

Offers guidelines for brainstorming and problem solving in order to solve new problems with existing solutions and to generate new solutions for existing problems.

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • With new information on crunching your own numbers to get the edge the experts have An international sensation—and still the talk of the relevant blogosphere—this Wall Street Journal and New York Times business bestseller examines the “power” in numbers. Today more than ever, number crunching affects your life in ways you might not even imagine. Intuition and experience are no longer enough to make the grade. In order to succeed—even survive—in our data-based world, you need to become statistically literate. Cutting-edge organizations are already crunching increasingly larger databases to find the unseen connections among seemingly unconnected things to predict human behavior with staggeringly accurate results. From Internet sites like Google and Amazon that use filters to keep track of your tastes and your purchasing history, to insurance companies and government agencies that every day make decisions affecting your life, the brave new world of the super crunchers is happening right now. No one who wants to stay ahead of the curve should make another keystroke without reading Ian Ayres’s engrossing and enlightening book.

Why Not? is a primer for fresh thinking, for problem-solving with a purpose, for bringing the world a few steps closer to the way it should be. Idealistic? Yes. Unrealistic? According to Why Not? authors Barry Nalebuff and Ian Ayres, no.Illustrated with examples from every aspect of life, Why Not? offers techniques which will help you take the things we all see, every day, and think about them in a new way. Great ideas are waiting. Why not be the one to discover them?

The part-owner of StickK.com uses research into incentives and punishments to introduce the concept of "commitment contracts," an easy strategy for setting and achieving goals that is already in use by successful companies and individuals across America. Ayres shares engaging, often astounding, real-life stories that show the carrot-and-stick principle in action, from the compulsive sneezer who needed a "stick" (the potential loss of $50 per week to a charity he didn't like) to those who need a carrot with their stick (the New York Times columnist who quit smoking by pledging a friend $5,000 per smoke . . . if she would do the same for him). You'l learn why you might want to hire a "professional nagger" whom you'll do anything to avoid- no, your spouse won't do!- and how you can "hand-tie" your future self to accomplish what you want done now. You'll find out how a New Zealand ad exec successfully "sold his smoking addiction", and why Zappos offered new employees $2,000 to quit cigarettes.