118. Behavioural Science Club: Interview with Co-Founder Louise Ward

Welcome to episode 118 of the Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy Today's episode is talking about my new favorite online hangout, a totally amazing group on LinkedIn in a chat with.

One of its founders.

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You are listening to the Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economic into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now here's your host, Melina Palmer.

Hello. Hello everyone.

My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to the Brainy Business Podcast. Today I'm so excited to talk about a fantastic club that started a few months ago on LinkedIn. In today's episode, you'll learn about the serendipitous nature of how this group was founded during my conversation with one of the catalysts of creating it, Louise Ward. The group is called the Behavioral Science Club and it has had limits on how many people can be included in the past, but at the moment they're letting anyone with an interest in being part of this online virtual book club of awesomeness to join. Though when you do sign up to join through LinkedIn, please do mention that you heard about it here so we can connect and Louise knows how you got here as well. As you'll learn, Louise has one on one conversations with every new member and there are close to 2,000 people now and this is a group about interaction and engagement. If you just want a notch on your LinkedIn group's belt then this is not the club for you. If you want to connect with others from around the world who love behavioral science and to learn and chat and have a chance to meet some amazing people in the space in the Virtual book club meetings, then it's a great spot and and you should definitely join. You can find a link in the show Notes to the group on LinkedIn to make it easy for you to sign up and once you do click on that link and click to join. Louise will likely personally approve you, send you a message and let you in. That link, along with relevant past episodes and books mentioned are in the show Notes for this episode, which can be found within the app you're listening to or at the brainy business.com118 Louise was so fun to chat with and as you'll learn she's very new to behavioral science and behavioral economics, someone who was passionate and took the initiative to do something and is now on the radar of some pretty amazing people who she's been able to chat with directly and who have agreed to come into the book club to discuss their books with us, including Rory Sutherland, Patrick Fagan, Brie Williams, Cass Sunstein, and many others. But before I let all the cats out of the bag, let's jump in on our conversation. Louise Ward, welcome to the Brainy Business podcast.

Thank you very much, Melina. It's a pleasure to be speaking with you here today.

Yeah, I'm so, so excited that you're here with me today. And I know I said this a bit in the intro, but so we met during nudge stock. We were Twitter chatting. And I know that that happened with quite a few people. And this just, I think, shows the kind of power of just taking the initiative to actually do something instead of where everybody talks about stuff and no one actually does anything for this. But you took the Twitter convo of people talking about books and turned it into a club that I think people had been asking for. But before we jump into that, I want to know about you. And that's. I was telling you before we got on the phone, I intentionally tried to not learn too much about people before we do the interviews because I like to learn with the audience. And I realize other than the fact that you created this club, that's amazing and I love everything about it. And we've chatted multiple times, But I don't know enough about you. So tell us about how you got into behavioral science and, you know, interest in it and your background. Would love to hear about it.

Okay. Thanks, Melina. Well, I've worked for nearly 20 years in market research. My interest in advertising comes from my father, who worked for all his life, really, in advertising. And we very much grew up in an advertising house, being aware of the campaigns he was working on and sort of realizing he was sort of living the life of going abroad to film and that dad's advert might be on television on Friday, all that type of a thing. So I suppose I've always been interested in advertising and then working, I suppose, in market research. I spent years trekking all around the UK doing ad testing with doctors. I worked in medical market research in London. Just very basic things. Sometimes, you know, what does the strap line mean to you? What does the image mean to you? And then, Melina, I took a very extended career break to bring up my children. I have four children, all in their 20s. And during that time, even though I wasn't working in an office, I was always busy. I started a toddler group when my children were toddlers. There was no toddler group where we Lived and then I went. It was a community play school so I worked in the community play school when they were in play school. And then when my youngest daughter finally went into play school, I went to college as a mature student. I'd left school at 18. I was mad to start work. I just wanted to be on the train and you think it's sophisticated when you're young. I wanted to be on the train and going to work and doing everything that people do when they're at work. And I hadn't really had any interest in going to college but then for a long time I'd really wanted to study something and I went back to college as a mature student on a humanities degree which was probably quite advanced in its way. It's called oscol in Ireland, which means distant school, like the equivalent of Open University I suppose. And yeah, it was a humanities dream so you could choose from philosophy, psychology. I majored in English and history and I suppose I've just always been interested in people, even when I was studying history. I loved it when you were studying things like how many people lived in a house in Victorian Ireland, which was extraordinary number of people. So it was when it really got down to sort of the personal that I got, you know, crossing over I suppose with sociology. But yeah, the people. And my dissertation was about the census in 1911 in Ireland when women didn't have to vote. So during census time they camped out so they couldn't be counted and you know, they went and camped in Phoenix park and did all these things. That was extraordinary. But it was always the people story behind it that really got me interested. So yeah, then after having completed the degree I basically went back to working in market research again, but not following the traditional path that I'd followed which was going as a junior research exec and then you're going for senior research. You know the progression. I was like, no, I know what I'm good at and I know what I enjoy doing. So I went back working in field which again is really working hands on with people. So there's just always something I've just been more comfortable with.

Yeah, awesome. Well, I am so glad I got to hear your story and I think that is definitely something that I found. Amongst those who are in the behavioral sciences, there's something else. And whether you're into anthropology or the ethnography, the like you said sociology, there's something about the stories behind it and understanding on a deeper level. And like I had to get a degree and I really wanted to combine you know, there are a lot of people I've talked about that said, you know, 30 plus years ago, wanted to get a degree, asked about X plus psychology or X plus, you know, sociology, and everybody said you couldn't do it. Like, that's not a thing. And now we're finding. Well, actually, it's really at the root of everything as far as. Which makes sense, right? How our brains are working dictates everything that we. We do all the time. So then it sounds like it's not surprising that you felt very comfortable taking the initiative to create the behavioral science club, slash book club that came out of. Out of Nudge Stock. But so talk a little bit about that. What happened? So, obviously we both attended nudge stock, US and 120,000 of our closest friends from around the world. And so then, you know, tweeting about books. What's. How did. How did it all go down?

Yeah. So I suppose, Melina, it was, to use a cliche, a series of fortunate events as opposed to unfortunate events. I'm rather one for a list, which is a bit of a standing joke in my house. I love to make list of things and I often follow. You know, if it's been the Booker Prize, I'll go and get all the Booker Prize books and work my way through it and. Just a list addict. And I saw that there was a post in LinkedIn about nudge stock. And I knew nothing about nudge stock, but I didn't know what the word nudge meant. I didn't even think. But it looked funky. It was Ogilvy, it was advertising, it was called nudge stock. So I'm like, well, that's cool. It must have something to do with Woodstock. And I looked it up and I'd just recently seen the documentary about all of the business that went on with Cambridge Analytica. So when I saw that Patrick Fagan was speaking and he was ex Cambridge Analytica, I thought, yeah, this is going to be interesting. You know, I thought it was Rory Sutherland, vice chairman, I thought, well, look, it's obviously a good caliber of people. I thought, this is going to be really worth watching. And as I started watching, as you say, with all of the other however many thousands who signed into a very unique event, I think we'd all agree, because of the COVID situation, they went online, but I don't think they could have figured that it would be so successful. No way. The chat started along in the side panel, as it does with these online events, and it was really buzzing. And as the speaker Started I thought, oh God, I'm sure. I read in the bio that this guy wrote a book and I scanned back to the bio and I thought, oh God, yeah, I'll have to keep a note of that because he was really interesting. I have to get the book. I suppose I'd only got about a name of a couple of books and I thought, oh geez, I'm going to lose this. Why don't I put a post in LinkedIn? It was actually in LinkedIn, but why not? But just put a post up saying collecting the books written by the Nudge stock speakers. And that was a LinkedIn post. And then I thought, well, I'm sure the people who are here wouldn't mind availing of a list. So I threw it up in one of the posts there's a link here if any of you are interested, which is collecting the book names of all the speakers. And just a sort of chat started, connecting to it. Somebody said, well, that would be a great subject for a book club. And then there were a few comments from Prakash, Prakash Sharma, who's the co manager of the book club with me. And then before I knew it really, I'd got a notice just only a day later from Prakash, who'd connected with me on LinkedIn, saying I've started a LinkedIn group. And I was like, great, what a great idea. And I was quite active for the first few days. We were sort of messaging and putting things in there and I suppose it had been going for not more than a week when he messaged me and said, well, would you like to manage the group? Would you like to be signed in as a co manager? And I was like, yeah, that would be great and it has been great. Just before we knew it, we were like, oh, there's 40 people, that's enough for a group. We've got a group here. We were really excited. And early days, Tony Navarro was active as well and he. We said, well, how are we going to choose the first book? And Tony knew Rory Sutherland's book Alchemy and knew that it was a great read. He was like, well, let's put that up as the first book because other people would have heard of it. And sure enough, it just turned out to be gold dust because people had heard of it, of course, and everybody in the behavioral science field knew Rory Sutherland from his Ogilvy Consulting. And again, a series of fortunate events. I thought, this is a bit cheeky, but I'll just contact Ogilvy hr, sorry, pr and just let them know that we're doing it. So I just messaged off. I didn't know who it was. OGILVY PR. Just to let you know, we started a LinkedIn book group and we're reading Alchemy, written by Rory Sutherland, your vice chairman. I thought they might be interested, who knows? And straight away, the kindness of Rory Sutherland came back. Before we knew it, he'd recorded a video for us talking about that there was this book club and how he was very flattered, which I thought was really sweet.

Right.

Yeah. And as you know, I mean, Melina, you've been there from the beginning, so you saw exactly what happened. He very kindly said, I'll come along and do a Q and A. And I suppose the difference that made to be able then to go to another author and say, we've got this group and were reading the books of Nudge Stock, which obviously they knew they'd been there and to be able to say, and Rory Sutherland has agreed to give us a Q and A on this date. I wonder whether you would also be interested in talking to the members.

Right.

And yeah, it was just like, good news after good news after good news. They all agreed. And Cass Sunstein, I nearly fell off my chair when he replied to my email. I suppose, you know, you just don't anticipate that there's going to be so much interest and also so much kindness from everybody in giving their time. And I'm not naive. I know that we're talking about their books and that there isn't much of a vehicle at the moment, but still, they're giving their time and you've been there at the chat. It's a very lovely, casual atmosphere and it just all feels really friendly, which is what's really nice.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, I know that for anybody that's in the space to say, people get excited to go to events, you know, in the past, when it was like, in person stuff, you know, that's one of the things where you'd say, well, I mean, Cass Sunstein's gonna be speaking. Guys like, this is a big deal, you know, and Rory and Patrick Fagan and all these, that just to be able to see them is cool live, you know, to have this conversation. But then to say, you know, we're having a Zoom meeting with a hundred people and Rory's going to be talking to us, Cass Sunstein is going to be talking to us. That's one of those we talk about now. So this, like, scarcity loss aversion piece to say, I want to register Immediately. Can I register now for the Cass Sunstein talk? Because I want to make sure. Tell me the date, I want it there, I want to be there. Yeah.

Melina, I'm sorry to interrupt, but you saying about the scarcity, that was one of the funny things, which I know that you were seeing the numbers of people who were joining the group. And I suppose I was a little bit overwhelmed by it, to be honest with you. I was like, oh my God, this is a big responsibility, you know, all of these hundreds of people. And we were just making it up as we went along and I think we were doing quite well. But still. And I think you'll remember, Melina, it got to one stage and we thought, you know, first of all there were 40, and then it was like, oh my God, there's 100. And then it was like, there's 500. And I thought, how can I have a sort of personal relationship with this number of people? I must say I had a little bit of a sort of a 24 hour crisis, like, oh my God, you know, and we started putting up a message which said, we've started this group and we're really pleased the way it's going, but we want it to be, I don't really know what the word is, but we wanted it to be a personal experience. And so the decision at that moment was, well, maybe we'll cap it at 500 so that we know these 500 members really well. And that was something we did really only for about 24 hours. But during that 24 hours, the membership requests went up and up and up. And I got back to Prakash and I said, oh, we're going to have to make a call on this. There's 200 people waiting to join group. And I said, I keep getting these strange messages like, how much is it to join or what can I do to. Oh my God. I mean, if that isn't scarcity. And I think you think in hindsight you're like, well, maybe we did a good thing because it just made it seem so much more appealing because it couldn't get in, right? But sure, as you know, we said, no, you know, it's got to grow organically. You know, the caliber of people that's still joining who are just learning about it can only add quality to the group. So, yeah, the floodgates opened and we're nearly at 2,000 now. So it's just been a really, really lovely, warm experience, I suppose.

Yeah, I remember. And I appreciate too that especially for the kind of early Days stuff, you know, where the posts were going up and asking questions like, should we limit this? Should we? And you know, about the people coming in or not. And then doing polls and getting everybody that already knows some of the behavioral stuff and having comments and it. I love that it's such a mix of people that just have an interest in behavioral science and maybe are. Maybe they're thinking about going and getting degrees, maybe they're not. But just find the space fascinating and are very active in the conversations with. Which is cool. And then you have people really working in the space and, you know, some of the other, you know, the authors that are there talking and all of that. It's just such an eclectic mix. But everybody's so welcoming and open and having great conversation. And I just really appreciate the chat and everything that's happening in LinkedIn and in the Zoom sessions when. When those Q and A's and things are happening.

Yeah. Yeah, you're so right. Yeah. And I think picking up on that, Melina, it's something that I regularly say, which is that the group is so diverse, as you say, there's students of behavioral science in college starting their journey. There's long in the tooth marketers who know every trick in the book. There's the people who are pure behavioral scientists, and then there's the people who have learned their skills because there wasn't behavioral science study at that time. And as you say, the diversity is very appealing. And also, I was thinking about it, and even though we are reading books written by marketers, behavioral scientists, and they very much are books with technical terms in them, they're not exclusive. That's what I think is so lovely about the whole subject. I'm new to the subject in terms of being educated about the proper terms, but that doesn't mean that I can't enjoy what we're reading. At the end of the day, Alchemy is a great storybook ripple that we were talking about this weekend, Jess Groom, and we were. It's really just a lot of. It's the campaign stories and he's sort of educating us as we go along. And even quite a technical book when we were speaking with Amy Bucher about the design book, there aren't terms that are hidden from us. You know, we can be learning all the time. And whether you're in the field or not, it's still accessible, which is absolutely lovely.

Right. Well, and that's. I think everyone listening to that this podcast has that exact same space that what you're talking about and that's something that I saw when I started. My degree in behavioral economics is mine. And I know there's You've potentially seen some of the conversation about behavioral science versus behavioral economics and when we use which title and everything all up for debate. When I was getting my degree and seeing how is not. Not just every single person in marketing, copywriting, advertising, product strategy, like, why is this not part of every single business everywhere? Makes no sense to me. And so, you know, here we are, start. Got the podcast going. Just in the same way that, you know, book club kind of came together and you just make it happen and you find that there are a lot of people out there that are interested. And when you make it relatable and accessible and something that people can learn from and the whole field just. I know that you have experienced this. We've already been talking about it. But as I reach out to chat with people as well, everyone is so kind and open and enthusiastic. Right.

So that's what I say to people. I say, I've just in such a short time met so many people and they're just all so enthusiastic and so seem to love what they're doing. And it's just really lovely to be in such a positive environment and people sharing their insights, people sharing their experiences. But I suppose the core of it is we're just all interested in how people are behaving when it comes down to it. So it just must draw those type of people together, I suppose.

Yeah, absolutely. And knowing that it's because. So nudge stock, for anyone that's listening that didn't attend live, they do, I think. I think the recordings are living on for forever. So even for the 120,000 that saw it when it happened.

Sure. Yeah. And if anyone hasn't seen them go and watch them, they're brilliant.

Right? Yeah. And so. But they started. So nudge stock went from what would have been a single event, 450 people or whatnot, that were supposed to be going to England. And then because of coronavirus, they put it online and then turned into this whole, like, how. How could we make it as great as possible? And I had watched a video that they had talked about the recap saying, you know, instead of being this sort of Woodstock kind of vibe, they had said, how could we make it be the live aid of behavioral science was their kind of vision. And, you know, 120,000 people watched the day that it happened, but they went through time zones and for 15 straight hours of content and really just got it exciting. And so what you end up with is now in the group, there are chats and there are people from Australia and from India and from Europe and the us. I mean, just all over in every session and conversation. Interestingly, I feel like there are much less, I don't know if you know much on the demographics of the group. I feel like there are a lot less people in the US than what I would have expected to see. But I don't know, maybe that's just me.

Yeah, we have a large number of people in the UK and we have a large number of people in India who have been drawn in from Prakash Sharma involvement in the group. And as you say, the number of people in the countries that we cover just stretches far and wide. And yeah, you might be right. There aren't so many from the usa. I don't know if that's maybe sort of from the direction of how the knowledge of it has radiated out, I don't know. But it'd be interesting to go back and ask a few people, how did you hear of it? But I know a lot of it is word of mouth. Somebody will go back and say, oh, signed in. Either it's making me read that book that's been on my shelf for ages, or we get a chance to speak to the authors in a small group, which is quite a privilege. So I suppose it's just whatever rocks your boat, right?

Yes. And hopefully, you know, maybe we'll get a nice US contingent of brainy business listeners.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I know so so far, because of that scarcity piece, I know that everybody that I recommend and send over, I send you a personal message with them and say, I'm not sure how the accepting process goes now, Louise, but this is so and so and they're awesome and you should let them in the group. And so I can't necessarily do that now with all the listeners, hopefully that will be joining. But if they tell you or say that's where they heard about it, that would be fun for our tracking purposes.

Absolutely, yeah. And yeah, your messages, Melina, are always very lovely. And the thing that's nice about it is that as opposed to a sort of an anonymous application, as it were, just in the usual run of things and I go into it at the end of each day and there's sort of 20 or 30 or people that I'm sending messages to and approving, I know then that there's an extra special connection with the people you've introduced me to. So it is a very nice way to come across new people on LinkedIn. So thank you very much, Melina.

Yeah, it's awesome. And then, you know, being able to connect everybody helps with that engaged space. And I would say one of the things I really love about this, it came at a good time for me, too, that I've been just really reflecting in the pandemic world of where I'm showing up, how I'm showing up, and where we've got, you know, the kids here all the time, where, you know, yours are out of the house, presumably we've got one that turned 4 and one that turned 7. And during this time, and so we're doing that in my husband's home and all these things. And there's a lot about just being present in the spaces where you're present and being able to have the benefit of really investing in a few things instead of being. Being able to say, I'm in 800 groups that all have something to do with behavioral economics or behavioral science or marketing or, you know, whatever it is. But being. Showing up there to where people remember you and you're having thoughtful conversation is just so much more valuable for the group as a whole. Just so it all really exists, but also that it just gets that social itch, you know?

Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Melina, I totally agree with you from a holistic point of view. And someone only commented to me the other day and she said, this just isn't like other LinkedIn groups.

Right.

And I'm glad about that because I think before I thought to myself, oh, you should join, you know, a good number of LinkedIn groups and it looks good on your page that you're interested in this, but it's all very surface.

Right.

And I think a lot of us, as you say, Melina, during this time have really reflected on things, and if anything good does come out of it, I think it will be that people have had time to step back and reflect on what's important to them. And as you say, to have a space like that to go to weekly. It was bi weekly, weekly now. And just be checking in, seeing familiar faces, being so glad when I see a little message from somebody saying, oh, it was my first time. And, you know, you feel it's quite a caring atmosphere. I feel quite responsible for everybody.

Yeah.

And I want to welcome them in and I want to. I often have to reassure people, you know, like, oh, I don't know if, you know, I'm the caliber or I don't know if I can comment until I'm like, oh, my God, you know, I'm the least qualified person in the whole of the group. And, you know, it's so inclusive, and there's nothing clever or complicated about it. We're with a lot of clever people, but we're all just normal people, really, at the end of the day. And I think that's what a lot of people have realized by maybe the egalitarianism that's been given to us by this event. We're signing in now to events, and we're seeing speakers in our living room. We can question them at the side. And it's not that passive behavior like when we're watching television where we're just watching, we're getting involved, and we're in there asking a question. And that person is. Somebody would be like, oh, now, I never thought I'd be able to speak to that person. And you feel like you've spoken to them, Right. It might be somebody else reading a question or. But still, it's like, you go away like, God, I asked such and such a question. And it's. I think it's been quite empowering, really, to people if they've wanted to step up and do something about it. Sign into the right webinars, get on the chat. You know, we've stepped up a bit, and I think that's really great.

Yeah, I remember, you know, Rory answered one of my questions or commented on something I put in the chat that I think was maybe part of what something was. And so it's kind of a cool. It is a cool thing to be able to engage with someone that you haven't had a chance to talk to yet. And just the. I come out of every single one of those with a bunch of notes of things I want to look into. Someone will mention something. Either the speaker will say something, and then the chat kind of like, wait, hey, what?

What?

What? And then somebody posts the link and, you know, you're able to.

I've heard, yeah, it gets very lively.

Yeah. So many times where, you know, I'm. I feel like I'm, you know, 50% of the checks. I'm like, what's that? Who has this? I haven't heard that study, you know, and then, you know, or sharing. Somebody asks about something, I'm sharing the link to some, you know, it's a cool space. And I end up connecting with more people after that group. And I just. I really love that even in the posts that happen in the group, that you get that activity during the week as well. You know, that every post I Think that goes up in the group has 20, 50, however many comments, and it's new people. It's not like it's the same people commenting over and over. That's the thing that there are so many Facebook groups, LinkedIn groups, whatever it is that you do join. And I've had some where I go in, and I'm a natural. I comment, and anybody that says something to me, I will respond to, I think. And I know you're the same way, Louise. And I think we've had the chains of like sounds good. Okay.

Yeah.

Because we both want to, like, show we read it.

Yeah, yeah, I am here. I have read your message.

Yeah. So, you know, just do the like. I saw that one. But being able to. You go into other groups and you try to be that. You know, you try to post something, asking thoughtful questions, and nobody's there. Even these groups that have 40,000 people in them or 100,000 people, but there's nothing happening. You know, two people, like a post that goes up or whatever it is. And when you get a group like this where, you know, you put up a post and so many people have things to say, it's just lively and exciting. And I enjoy everything about the group. I hope that some of the listeners of this show will join us there and be able to have more thoughtful conversations. Everyone knows that I enjoy thoughtful conversations.

So, yeah, that's just. That's really lovely to hear you saying all of that, Melina. And quite early on, Prakash and I said, look, this isn't a selling group. And I think it kind of changed the timbre of the group in that everybody's there in a very safe space. Nobody's saying, oh, I'm better than you because I've got this course. Sign up to my course, or I've got this paper I've published, or I've got this. It's not a one upmanship. We're all there, as I say, just very equally chatting about books. You know, how safe is that? And so we were careful about which posts we approved early on because we wanted to set a precedent and say, look, if you're coming in here, you're saying, either, oh, I really like chat to such and such of hooked, for example, and say why? Or to tell us about yourself as a person. Because as Prakash said early on, listen, we can all Google so we can all find those YouTubes for ourselves. We can all find those ads for ourselves. And if somebody asks for help, that's a little bit different. Can you recommend a podcast That's a little bit different. But we don't need a whole heavy, crowded thread of this. YouTube's great. And this, you know, we can all do that. We're all clever people, so.

Right.

I think that means that the posts, as you say, Melina, they're genuine chats amongst people. They're genuine comments about. What did you like about the book? Or have you tried this book? Or. I loved the chat on Sunday. And that has kind of set the tone, I think, for the whole of the group.

Absolutely. So I'm curious about. So the calls are always on the weekend? Yes, yes. And it's been interesting where Saturday and then it's Sunday for. And maybe that was from when Jazz and April were able to make that work. So is there a reason they're on the weekend? And I believe that. So they've been in UK time and now they're going to be switching to Australia time or just kind of whenever it makes sense.

It's all very straightforward. Melina. We started the group. Prakash very quickly put forward this idea that it would be the first Saturday and the third Saturday. And we thought, yeah, that's really clean, no confusion. And so we said, okay, the first Saturday we'll do the book chat. And so it means it's the following one. So the first Saturday is the book chat. All of us all just get together and just whatever organically happens on the day. And then the third Saturday, once we realized that the authors were willing to come along to the Q and A, we said, well, let's get the third Saturday to be author Q and A. It's halfway through the month. People have either just started it or it might need a little bit of a boost. And that'll really add some interest to get them to maybe read a few chapters so they know what the author's talking about. So that was the plan, the first and the third. And as you say, it has been on a Sunday. That was because of a previous engagement one of the authors had. And there will be one coming up on a Friday again because of something that the author is tied and it's always at 4 o' clock. the moment we're calling it British Summertime, but, you know, changes and then it becomes Greenwich mean time. But 4 o', clock. And we chose 4 o' clock because we looked at the world clock and we thought, well, if you're in the us, you can hop on first thing in the morning. I hop on in the afternoon. And of course, Prakash is in India. So for him it's six hours. I think it's maybe 9:30, five and a half hours. 9:30 when he hops on. So we thought it's the best we can do to span covering so many time zones. But then I very quickly thought to myself, oh, my God, there's so many great new books being published all the time. And one of the authors had already approached Prakash and said, well, can I come along and talk about my book? So how it's developed, as you say, is that we are now meeting every Saturday and the intervening weeks are nearly always with an author of a newly published behavioral science book. I think that's important to give people airspace when they're publishing new books. There'll be a buzz about it because it's new. And I was aware that because we had the structure of reading the books by the speakers, there was a very wide range of publication dates. Some of them were new. But then we are reading classics, we are reading Nudge, we are reading Danaireal's classics. So I was aware that, you know, we had this broad range of published books in terms of how familiar people would be with them. So I thought that's a really nice compliment to say in between. We'll give airspace to people who've just released their books.

Yeah, Love it. Well, it's a fantastic group, as we've already said. I love it. I have been very happy to be part of it. I've invited several people, as I've already said, and hopefully all of you listening will join us as well. And like you said, Louise, it's, you know, 2,000 people and growing, like you said, you're adding 20 people a day that are just more engaged, excited people. So I love everything about it. What is the best way for people to find you and to find the group? There'll be a link in the show notes, of course, but go ahead and tell us.

Sure. So if you just go into LinkedIn and type in Behavioral Science Club, it comes straight up and you just open up that page. You won't see the chat yet because you're not a member, but you just click to apply to join, and I check that page very, very regularly. Sometimes it'll be the same day, sometimes the next day. I'm always very alert when we've got a meeting coming up, thinking, oh, has this person joined? Because they've heard there's going to be a Q and A with such and such. I'd always be very alert at that time getting people in in case they want to come along. And I think My message box might be open on LinkedIn, I'm not sure. But if you go on LinkedIn and you can look myself up, Louise Ward. And if you select the other on LinkedIn, it has my email address there. So if you can't Message me on LinkedIn, you can send me an email. But as I say, the easiest way is to just go onto LinkedIn and type in Behavioral Science Club and I can guarantee in very quickly you'll be in with a nice personal message from myself. I send a message. Everybody who joined gets a message which tells them about how often we meet, what time we meet. It gets a link to the books that we're reading in the first six months so that you can go away. And if you want to buy them or just look up the person or not read it, listen, I say to people, this isn't school, Melina. So if you just want to hop in and be part of the group and follow the chat, that's fine. There's no rules. It's not school. It's just an open group for anyone who just. I know you don't even have to love behavioral science. They're just great books.

Well, I think anybody who likes these books will also, you know, enjoy the field. So we do know that. And then for those who are listening here from the States, it's behavioral in the uk, spelling. So we've got the U.

With a U. Yeah, with the U we have a U. Yes. Very interesting, isn't it? And there seems to be a lot of chat at the moment, Melina, about the different terms and the different descriptions that people are using. Tell me about that, Melina. It certainly seems to be a pertinent subject at the moment.

Well, I think it's, you know, there's question of what. When is it behavioral economics and when is it behavioral science? And that was Richard Thaler put a tweet with his two cents in there, which is worth more than many of our two cents, I would say, on the subject at least. And he was saying it seems a lot of the consensus being like behavioral science is the umbrella and behavioral economics is a path underneath that for me, because I'm in the space of buying decisions mostly. And I see it in this exchange of even if you're not exchanging money, I see the interactions of getting someone to click or to help in that persuasion space, I still see that as kind of that economic exchange of goods and services without money changing hands. So I feel economics is the space. As I said, I have a degree in behavioral economics. So that's perhaps where my persuasion, why I feel that way. But you know, for the behavioral science spaces where you're looking at the public policy and a lot of the social type change aspects and those sorts of the nudging for good groups and things like that, I can see where it doesn't feel like economics is the same thing in General. There's no 100% answer yet. It's all. It's all under debate. And I don't know that it. I can't. I don't know how much it matters. Doesn't matter to me so much. I can use them both. But some people don't like using those terms interchangeably and I get it. So.

Yeah, yeah. And we were having the debate recently with Jazz where there was the balance of the behavioral scientists who learned their skills, as it were, and literally by doing experiments on the ground. And obviously you see it. You don't need to understand, do you, as long as you see it. We sometimes make a reason up, don't we, behind why things happened, but. And then there was the balance then, obviously of the people who have studied it as a science. But as Jez said at the time when he came into the field, there wasn't an academic route. So I find all of that discussion really interesting as well.

Yeah, absolutely. I think it's just great to meet more people that are interested and have done things. And I appreciate. So Tim and Kurt from Behavioral Grooves, where they talk about the accidental behavioral scientist or behavioral economist, whichever way goes. But I think that's a really great term for it. And that's the same. You know, I worked in marketing for years before I went back and got my master's. And so being able to say, like, there are a lot of things I was doing, I can look back now and see why they worked and what was going on, even though I didn't have the perfect term for it. And I'm sure you have a lot of that as well.

Yeah. And actually, just to say to you, it was really lovely. I was chatting with somebody recently and they work in marketing. And she was saying, I just really enjoyed the group. And I'm really thinking of bringing some of the aspects I've learned. And that's just since June, if you think about it, the aspect I've learned into, into our agency. So that's just when you hear people say things like that, it's just so lovely to think that just from a gang of people getting together to read a few books that they've got so turned on by the subject that they're like, oh, I'm gonna do some of this. I'm gonna. I'm going to go back to my agency and practice behavioral science.

Yay.

Yeah. I mean, it's just really inspiring hearing people's stories. I love stories.

Yeah, I do too. Yeah, absolutely. You are changing the world one book club meeting at a time.

Let's hope so.

Melina, thank you so much for bringing me along on the journey and for.

Joining me on the show today.

Thank you very much, Melina. It's been lovely to talk to you. It's been a lovely experience to have met you via the book group and here's to many more new friendships.

Yes, absolutely.

Thanks a lot.

Thank you again to Louise Ward for joining me on the show today. As I've already said, and you can probably tell, I absolutely adore this book club. During this time in the pandemic, I've been really focusing on showing up in the right places instead of trying to be everywhere on a cursory level. I want to be able to really engage with others and learn from them, have great conversation and make a difference. And this group is a great space to do that. The chat box on the now weekly Zoom Calls are buzzing with conversation. The page is constantly full of posts and comments and many of these people are now part of my regular conversation on my own LinkedIn page. People I didn't know before, from around the world who are passionate about the same things as me and have knowledge in areas I didn't necessarily have on my radar are. It's a truly amazing group and if listening to this episode gave you any twinge of that, sounds awesome. I highly, highly recommend you join and then keep up the momentum and join the Zoom Calls and engage on the page. No matter what your background or knowledge level, you should come be part of this group if it interests you. There are experts with PhDs and students considering getting degrees and people like Louise who found a new passion to add into their existing careers. Thank you again to Louise Ward for joining me on the show today and for making this amazing group a reality. As always, it was a great joy to chat with you. Next Week on episode 119, you're going to learn about a super cool app called Pique P I Q U E that is looking at habits in a little different way and some really cool things that can help you in your pandemic life. It's going to be a lot of fun. You won't want to miss it until then. Thanks again for listening and learning with me and remember to be thoughtful.

Thank you for listening to the Brainy Business Podcast. Molina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.