Nir And Far: Business, Behaviour and the Brain

The truly great consumer technology companies of the past 25 years have all had one thing in common: they created habits. This is what separates world-changing businesses from the rest. Apple, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter are used daily by a high proportion of their users and their products are so compelling that many of us struggle to imagine life before they existed. But crea...

As the web becomes an increasingly crowded place, users are desperate for solutions to sort through the online clutter. The Internet has become a giant hairball of choice-inhibiting noise and the need to make sense of it all has never been more acute. Just ask high-flying sites like Pinterest, Reddit, and Tumblr. These   curated web  portals connect millions of people to information they never kne...

Slack isn’t just another office collaboration app. The company has been  called , “the fastest-growing workplace software ever.” Recent press  reports  claim that “users send more than 25 million messages each week,” and that the company is, “adding $1 million to its annual billing projections every six weeks.” Smelling an opportunity, investors just  plowed  $120 million into the company, giving...

By the looks of his laptop, Robbert Van Els could be mistaken for a secret agent. His screen is an explosion of urgent files — a master control center for managing clandestine operatives. The man of mystery persona is typified by a side-sliding sports car winding through an onslaught of Word docs and Jpeg files. Just looking at his desktop can raise your blood pressure. But Van Els is not a secret...

Nir’s Note:  This article on goal setting was originally published in early 2016 but got such a great reader response that I decided to expand and update it along with adding the video below. Let me know what you think in the comments. Over the past four years, I’ve discovered many incredible ways to hack my habits, set better goals, and improve my life. I have taught myself to love running, drama...

“Don’t boil the ocean,” Terry said as he slapped a tall stack of papers on my desk. “Just tell us what we need to know.”  I was staring at a serious problem. To help our firm win a multimillion-dollar consulting contract, I had five days to tell my new boss everything there was to know about airline bankruptcies. Problem was, I didn’t know the first thing about airline bankruptcies.  I barely knew...

When my wife and I moved to New York City in 2001, recently graduated from college and newly wed, we were eager to find friends. We knew nearly no one but were sure we’d soon find a fun-loving group like the 20- and 30-something New Yorkers who spontaneously dropped in on one another on TV shows like  Seinfeld  and  Friends . We hatched a plan. After moving into our Midtown Manhattan apartment, we...

Nir’s Note:  This guest post is an excerpt from the new book  Invisible Influence: The Hidden Factors that Shape Behavior , written by my friend and Wharton School professor, Jonah Berger. Being different, the notion goes, is the route to success. Think different was even Apple’s motto for a period. And Apple is often held up as a poster child of the benefits of this ethos. Conventional wisdom sug...

In years to come, conversations will breathe new life into software—particularly the boring enterprise tools millions of knowledge workers begrudgingly use every day. Conversational user interfaces (CUIs) work because of our familiarity with messaging. Even the most technically complex interactions can look as simple as getting an SMS text when presented as a conversation. There are three benefits...

Around the election, in a desperate search for answers about our nation’s future, I found myself scrolling, reading, and watching everything I could. I was trapped in an endless pull-to-refresh cycle of consuming more news, tweets, posts, and videos than was good for me. I told myself that I was staying informed, that this was part of my civic duty—and that not staying up-to-date 24-7 would leave...

Nir’s Note: This guest post is written and illustrated by  Lakshmi Mani , a product designer working in San Francisco. Have you ever had a mounting pile of work you know you need to do but for some reason didn’t? There’s an important deadline looming, your boss is breathing down your neck, the pressure is on — all signs are pointing to you getting it done. Yet you put it off, turn on Netflix, and...

Nir’s Note:  This guest post is by Max Ogles, who writes at  MaxOgles.com . On March 27, 1964, Kitty Genovese was brutally attacked and killed in the open streets of New York City. What makes Genovese’s story so tragic is that police later discovered numerous people were aware of Genovese’s distress but never came to her aid. Though the total number of witnesses is disputed, the story stands as an...

In the new film  Ex Machina ,  a reclusive billionaire invents a robotic artificial intelligence. To test whether his invention is indistinguishable from a human being, he helicopters-in a young engineer to see if he falls in love with the robot. Today, making machines and humans indistinguishable from each other is no longer science fiction, it’s good business. In fact, a wave of startups are par...

You walk into your first yoga class. You’re a little insecure about your weight and how your yoga clothes cling to your body revealing every flaw. You’re nervous about making a fool of yourself. Your eyes instantly zoom onto the fit model-esque people chatting in the corner. As you walk past them, your ears pick up the tinkle of laughter.  My god, are they laughing at me? You pick a spot in t...

Nir Eyal interviews author of Irresistible. Nir & Far, a podcast about business, behaviour and the brain by Nir Eyal. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe on iTunes and leave an iTunes review. It will greatly help new listeners discover the show. Please visit my website Nir and Far for other info about my writing, books and teaching: http://www.nirandfar.com/

To understand technology addiction (or any addiction for that matter) you need to understand the Q-tip. Perhaps you’ve never noticed there’s a scary warning on every box of cotton swabs that reads, “CAUTION: Do not enter ear canal…Entering the ear canal could cause injury.” How is it that the one thing most people do with Q-tips is the thing manufacturers explicitly warn them not to do?...

You can read the Nir and Far blog post on: Here's How Alexa Hooks You  https://www.nirandfar.com/2017/06/how-amazons-alexa-hooks-you.html Nir & Far, a podcast about business, behaviour and the brain by Nir Eyal. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe on iTunes and leave an iTunes review. It will greatly help new listeners discover the show. Please visit my website Nir and Far for other info a...

Having a hard time focusing lately? You’re not alone. Research shows interruptions occur about every twelve minutes in the workplace , and every three minutes in university settings. In an age of constant digital interruptions, it is no wonder you’re having trouble ignoring distractions. In their new book, The Distracted Mind: Ancient Brains in a High-Tech World , Dr. Adam Gazzaley, a neuroscienti...

Nir’s Note: This guest post is by Vanessa Van Edwards, lead investigator at the Science of People  — a human behavior research lab. This exclusive book excerpt is from Vanessa’s new book,  Captivate: The Science of Succeeding with People , which was recently named as one of Apple’s Most Anticipated Books of 2017. We all want more conversions. More sign-ups, more sales, more cli...

Nir Eyal chats with author, Alexandra Watkins about her book, Hello, My Name is Awesome. Nir & Far, a podcast about business, behaviour and the brain by Nir Eyal. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe on iTunes and leave an iTunes review. It will greatly help new listeners discover the show. Please visit my website Nir and Far for other info about my writing, books and teaching: http://w...

Nir Eyal talks with Dan Olsen, author of The Lean Product Playbook. Nir & Far, a podcast about business, behaviour and the brain by Nir Eyal. If you enjoy this podcast, please subscribe on iTunes and leave an iTunes review. It will greatly help new listeners discover the show. Please visit my website Nir and Far for other info about my writing, books and teaching: http://www.nirandfar.com/

Monica is a Research Scientist at the Stanford University Center for Compassion and Altruism and a Faculty Affiliate at the University of Michigan’s Center for Positive Organizations. Their discussion touches on why empathetic teams make better business deals, details how more caring leaders can help prevent corporate scandals, and offers four steps for cultivating compassion. Nir & Far, a pod...

Not so long ago, my after work routine looked like this: After a particularly grueling day, I’d sit on the couch and veg for hours, doing my solo version of “ Netflix and chill ,” which meant keeping company with a cold pint of ice cream. I knew the ice cream, and the sitting, were probably a bad idea, but I told myself this was my well-deserved “reward” for working so hard. Psychological research...

Recently, I needed to book a lunch meeting. To help coordinate, I asked Amy to assist and cc’d her on the email. “Amy,” I wrote, “please help us find a time to meet. Let’s plan for sushi at Tokyo Express on Spear Street.” Amy looked at my calendar, found an open time suitable for everyone invited, and booked the meeting. Amy works just like a human assistant, except she’s not human. It’s an AI bot...

All products and services, everything we buy and use, have but one job—to modulate our mood. The fundamental reason we use technology of all sorts, from stone tools to the latest iPhone, is to make us feel better. To prove the point, consider how perception of relief is tantamount to actual relief. Consider the so-called placebo button. Take, for example, the lowly crosswalk button. When we f...