Alchemy: The Dark Art and Curious Science of Creating Magic in Brands, Business, and Life

Human self-deception makes our job difficult for another reason: no one wants to believe in its existence, and it is something which people seem only to accept at a shallow, theoretical level.*

When affordances are taken advantage of, the user knows what to do just by looking: no picture, label, or instruction needed.’

we simply don’t have access to our genuine motivations, because it is not in our interest to know.

OXO Good Grips is a highly successful manufacturer of kitchen utensils that applies this principle to the wider world: Sam Farber started the company because his wife suffered from arthritis and had difficulty using kitchen implements

Value resides not in the thing itself, but in the minds of those who value it. You can therefore create (or destroy) value it in two ways – either by changing the thing or by changing minds about what it is.

Before anyone can drive a black cab, he or she is forced to undergo a gruelling four-year initiation programme known as the Knowledge, for which they are required to memorise every street, major building and commercial premises within six and a half miles of Charing Cross Station, an area that includes 25,000 streets and 20,000 landmarks.

It is easy to depict a discovery, once made, as resulting from a logical, and linear process, but that does not mean that science should progress according to neat, linear and sequential rules.

The theory is that if all our unconscious motivations were to impinge on our consciousness, subtle cues in our behaviour might reveal our true motivation, which would limit our social and reproductive prospects.

Logic should be a tool, not a rule.