The Attention Economy: Evelyn Gosnell

PodcastDecember 04, 2019
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I’m very concerned about the attention economy, and how can we think about making people more productive. You know, something like email, which pings us all day long is not in line with any of the research on how people can be productive.

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Intro

In today’s episode, we are joined by Evelyn Gosnell, Managing Director at Irrational Labs and frequent speaker in behavioral economics and consumer psychology. She is an expert in helping companies use the science of decision-making to better understand how real people think and behave, thereby creating better products and services for them. Evelyn is also the Head of Product Development and Behavioral Science at Shapa, a health startup founded by behavioral scientist Dan Ariely. Evelyn’s work spans across a broad array of industries. She has launched major health initiatives with companies such as Aetna, developing and implementing behavioral training programs to be used at scale.  She has worked with Google, Procter & Gamble, The World Bank, Maritz, AARP, CUNA Mutual, among others. Evelyn also teaches a course on behavioral economics through UCSD Extension and is a frequent guest lecturer at the Rady School of Business at UCSD.

In this episode, we discuss:
  • How Evelyn’s product background helped her in her current role at Irrational Labs.
  • Shapa’s approach to the “overweight” problem: nudging with a numberless scale.
  • Is Nudging overused? And, why transparency is critical to creating an ethical code of conduct around behavioral science.
  • Empiricism versus efficiency and creating a culture of rapid testing and experimentation.
  • Using behavioral science to personalize, predict and direct brand strategy.
  • Health, wealth and happiness: Irrational Lab’s guiding principles for selecting projects.
  • Why experience is everything if you want to work in applied behavioral science.
  • The projects that Evelyn is excited about in the near and long-term future.

About the Guest

Evelyn Gosnell

Evelyn Gosnell

Evelyn Gosnell is the Managing Director at Irrational Labs and frequent speaker in behavioral economics and consumer psychology. She is an expert in helping companies use the science of decision-making to better understand how real people think and behave, thereby creating better products and services for them. Evelyn’s work spans across a broad array of industries and has launched major health initiatives with companies such as Aetna, developing and implementing behavioral training programs to be used at scale. She also teaches a course on behavioral economics through UCSD Extension and is a frequent guest lecturer at the Rady School of Business at UCSD.

About the Interviewer

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Jakob Rusinek

World Bank

Jakob Rusinek is a Behavioral Specialist with the World Bank's Knowledge Management Unit. He is responsible for diagnosing, designing and implementing behavioral insight interventions in areas such as energy theft, labor market programs, fragile conflict states and organizational reforms. He previously worked with Professor Dan Ariely, amongst others, to support the efforts of streamlining behavioral science at the World Bank Group. Jakob holds an MA in Social-Organizational Psychology from Columbia University and has previously worked at the United Nations in New York.

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