Things I Learned

I have studied economics at Yildiz Technical University in Istanbul. During my four years there, learned about the fascinating history of economics from Malthus’s grave prediction about the increasing population ending the world as we know it (Spoiler: It didn’t) to Adam Smith’s “Invisible hand” to Marx’s proletariat revolution.

It wasn’t all about history; I learned about modern economic theories, law, statistics and econometrics, and some sociology. Although I have never worked in economics or finance, I am still very interested in social sciences.

While working on different go-to-market strategies at Peg b for Whizmo, we stumbled upon the Blue Ocean Strategy. Our CEO decided that it is better to learn it from its creators, so I was among the team that was sent to Singapore for the Blue Ocean Strategy course thought at INSEAD.

In summary, the Blue Ocean Strategy aims to teach ways of creating blue oceans: Uncontested markets where competition is rendered irrelevant, rather than getting into price wars in the red oceans.

• 

• 

• 

I’m generally fascinated by psychology; how we decide, why we act the way we do, and how other people’s behaviours affect us. So, when I see this introductory course by Wesleyan University is being offered on Coursera, I decided to go for it.

Some takeaways from the course

Confirmation bias: We look for, read and recall information that supports our views and beliefs.

Self-fulfilling prophecy: A prediction or belief affects people’s behaviour, thus helping the prediction become a reality.

Attribution theory and fundamental attribution error: How people assign reasons to actions and why they tend to attribute things to personality-based behaviour rather than external factors.

Cognitive dissonance: People want to be psychologically consistent about their beliefs, decisions and actions. So, when there’s inconsistency, they try to find ways (e.g. justifying their actions, ignoring facts, etc.)

“Foot in the door” technique: Rather than asking for something big directly, asking for a small favour first from someone increases the chance of subject’s compliance for the bigger favour.

Reciprocity: People tend to return the favour. This tendency can be used as a sales technique where a potential buyer is given something small for free, which increases their chances of buying something.

Reciprocal concession and “Door in the face” technique: Instead of asking for a favour directly, asking for an outrageous favour that is certainly to be rejected first, increases the chances of actual favour’s acceptance.

Milgram experiment and obedience to authority: Why people follow orders and how far they can go at following orders? (Also a great book from Hannah Arendt: Eichmann in Jerusalem and also “Banality of Evil“)

Abilene paradox and decision making in groups: How groups make decisions and the phenomenon of choosing an option while no one in the group actually favours it.

Bystander effect: Chances of an individual helping someone in need diminishes when there are other people around.

My previous employer, CEO of Peg b Tech, had read about the Hook Framework and wanted to get some consultancy from its creator, Nir Eyal. In order to understand the framework before contacting him, I completed his short course on LinkedIn, also read his book “Hooked“

The Hook Framework is certainly an interesting tool that offers great potential for creating habit-forming digital products. I consider myself genuinely lucky to meet with Mr Eyal and have conversations about our product, potential market and how we can achieve our goals by implementing his framework.

I have finished a short online class thought by Product School on creating and managing digital products. The course was surprisingly practical and had subjects like breaking monopolies, prioritization and, key biases and ways to avoid them.