To be social means to be influenced. It means to influence and be influenced all the time, mostly subconsciously and very little unconsciously.

Understanding that and working to improve our ability to recognize positive and negative influences helps us improve our thinking, our decisions, and our quality of life.

This is especially important for people who work in marketing, because we have to be extra careful not use influence in an unethical way.

This How to Web conversation with Tim Ash was an excellent opportunity to explore the mechanisms of persuasion and the ethical dilemmas to which we need to pay attention.

As Tim aptly observed:

Whatever the technology is, we’re still trying to influence the human mind, and that part isn’t changing. So if you want to have a great career as a marketer, figure out how persuasion works. Figure out how human beings make decisions, and then apply it to the right campaign and the right technology.

Listen to this conversation to learn:

  • Why our brain is very expensive thing to operate and how that affects our decisions and actions
  • Why we can’t make decisions without emotions
  • The good and the bad about using nudges to help people build habits.

A few ideas I firmly believe in:

  • Everything we do, whether it’s building products, companies, teams, campaigns – everything ties into human behavior and you cannot do anything well unless you understand it
  • Our biology cannot keep up with how fast technology is evolving, so we need to develop and strengthen critical thinking abilities to help us cope
  • Reflecting on your role and impact as a marketer is an essential process to keep your work aligned with your principles and to serve people instead of harming them.

About Tim Ash:

Tim is a highly-rated keynote speaker and presenter at over 200 events across four continents. He has been asked to return as a keynote at dozens of events because of the fantastic audience response.

Tim also has deep expertise in evolutionary psychology and his book, Unleash Your Primal Brain: Demystifying how we think and why we act, is a must-read for marketers at any stage in their career.