A farewell to Rory

It was a sad moment last Thursday when Rory Sutherland chaired the last IPA Council meeting of his Presidency. But it didn't take long for the event to swing into party mode, with mojitos and champagne, to celebrate his many achievements.

Rory wouldn't be Rory without leaving a strong legacy; a third IPA BE publication - " Let's get practical" - featuring case examples from 13 agencies, and the announcement of a strategic partnership between the IPA and Warwick Business School.

Dean and Professor Mark Taylor and Prof Nick Chater were present to endorse his plan and flesh out the detail: a FastTrack exec programme in BE for agencies and their clients; a BE Incubator for lab trials; and a BE FastStream for WBS students with agencies.

One's relative, three's a crowd

Forget the theory of crowds.

According to Nick Chater, Professor of Behavioural Science, Warwick Business School, testing large groups of people does not guarantee you an accurate answer to a problem.  Herd instincts get in the way.

Take a jar of jelly beans. Ask people to guess the number inside. Prime one big group of people with numbers significantly lower than the real number. Prime another group with numbers significantly higher. We'll all stick close to the number first specified. Whether it's true or not. Our natural tendency is to make relative rather than absolute decisions or choices.  We're only human, after all!

Click here to view details of the IPA's Behavioural Economics programme