All posts tagged: diversity and inclusion

Book Review: Why She Buys by Bridget Brennan

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This book is considered a milestone in marketing (and selling) for women, and for this reason, I decided to read it. According to Bridget Brennan, 80% of sales are influenced by women. Moreover, at the time this book was written, most of the marketing effort was made towards man. No relevant communication, no specific advertising, no tuned-in marketing. Stop: we all assume there is a ton of marketing addressed to women. However, one of the most exciting chapters of this book is dedicated precisely to Marketing to Women, and is titled “The Difference between Sex Appeal and Gender Appeal“. In short: if you thought that women lingerie advertising are typically done for women, think again. The sexual charge of it is generally addressed to man. Gender is the most powerful determinant of how a person views the world and everything int it. it’s more powerful than age, race, or geography. Bridget Brennan, Why She Buys, page 11 If seen this way (although some might disagree), we understand the fact that the entire process of designing, producing, selling …

Book Review: The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki

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Why the Many are Smarter than the Few. It’s this subtitle (appeared own the last edition of the cover) that has attracted me to this book by James Surowiecki. He makes the case that large groups of people are smarter than an elite few, no matter how brilliant the individuals are. Crowds are better at solving problems, innovating, coming to wise decisions, and predicting the future. The title The Wisdom of Crowds pays homage to Charles Mackay’s 1841 book, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds, yet challenging its premise. By focusing on a lot of social research, and giving tons of anecdotal evidences, the author breaks a lot of assumptions that we have on how groups reason, and how they can effectively reach better results that individuals. But don’t take everything for granted: Groups are not more efficient always. To function properly, “collective intelligence” must satisfy four conditions: Diversity: Individuals have “private knowledge” and insights that stem from their varying levels of knowledge, personal experience and ways of thinking about the world. No …

Book Review: What Works: Gender Equality By Design by Iris Bohnet

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The topic of Gender Inequality has been addressed by several books in recent years, often coming from different theoretical and ideological backgrounds. Broadly we can find two extremes: a) the corporate self-help strategies of leaning in and b) the revolutionary defiance of leaning out. The work of Iris Bohnet finds a place for itself based on a vast and comprehensive review of research across the social sciences. Focusing on inequalities primarily within workplaces and schools, she does not try to position herself into one or the other ideological fields. Instead, she emphasises the complementarity of a behaviourally-based and empirically-driven approach with broader feminist strategies. The author focuses on de-biasing environments rather than individuals as a solution to tackle gender inequality. By identifying behaviours and processes that take root in institutions and explicating how they impede gender equality, it may be possible to intervene and design around the point at which bias is most likely to take hold. This approach, often identified as ‘Nudging’, allows for faster achievements, moving the needle through quick wins in faster …