Dan Ariely is one of the most interesting people I have ever come across… I could go on about his various TED talks or the rest of his incredible CV – but you can enter that rabbit hole another time. Today, I wanted to cover Chris Yeh’s Outline of Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces that Shape Our Decisions. It’s one of Ariely’s most fascinating books… and takes a peek into the predictable psychology that powers human actions and reactions. As always, I’ll try and pick out some lessons we can apply to our world of watches. Here’s Ariely’s list…
Editing photos in Adobe Lightroom for use on Instagram
This is a deviation from my usual topics, but hopefully some will find it useful! Recently I had some issues with photos being a little blurry when posted to Instagram, so I decided to do some investigation on the best approach to editing and exporting in Adobe Lightroom.
The Paradox of Choice – quasi book summary and discussion
Barry Schwartz is an American psychologist, Professor of Social Theory and Social Action at Swarthmore College, and since 2016 has been visiting professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His work focuses on the intersection of psychology and economics… He is also the author of the book “The Paradox of Choice” and he talks about the concepts from the book in this TED talk. In this post I wanted to outline some of the key points he makes, and connect them to a watch collector’s decision-making processes.
Will the Apple Watch kill the luxury watch industry?
According to Neil Cybart at Above Avalon (the world’s top ranked Apple analyst), it took just over five years for the installed base of the Apple Watch to surpass 100 million people, and its growth trajectory continues to accelerate. What does this mean for the ‘traditional’ Swiss watch industry, and how should they react? A 14-year-old who wears an Apple watch today, will have worn nothing else until they’re old enough to afford a Rolex – The question is, when this day comes, will they want one?
Try it – you might actually like it!
A few days ago I was reading this post about how our preconceived notions might hinder our decision-making… I thought it was so applicable watches, and wanted to share it here with a few comments.
Phillips collaborates with watchmakers
So, it seems Phillips, in association with Bacs and Russo, are now doing collaborations with watchmakers to create limited editions for friends of the auction house. A brief chat with my friend @running_sands helped shed some light on this new development.
A discussion about the pricing of luxury watches
As certain watches gain popularity and resell for multiples of the original retail price, this post aims to discuss some of the pricing dynamics in the watch world, and think through the considerations a brand would need to make before setting the price of a watch. It is simply a discussion and thought experiment, hope you find it interesting.
How does watch allocation work?
A week ago @nycwatchguy started blogging too – which is good news for the watchfam. In his most recent post he discusses “The rules of engagement” for brands in the watch world… and I thought I would share some frameworks to help folks understand with a little more detail how brands think about the process of allocating a watch to a client. I still agree with him, that it would be nice if brands were more transparent, however, I think we should not hold our breath.
What’s the deal with Vacheron Constantin?
I never thought I would see the day where I wrote about Vacheron Constantin, and the post was anything other than glowing praise. Many will already know how much I love the brand, and although I only own one watch from their collection, I had, and perhaps still have every intention of owning more of them (although they probably won’t sell me one again). I think the Vacheron executives have become too arrogant, too quickly, and it is extremely disappointing; Even if this behaviour is par for the course with hype brands, people who have seen and experienced the ‘old Vacheron’ have every right to feel disappointed. Sure, this will perhaps become the new normal for the brand, but let’s talk about it anyway.
Start with what you know
Many innovators and strategists are obsessed with predicting how the world will change in the future, and then they then try and develop new products and business models to fit this “new hypothetical world”. As Jeff Bezos describes, it can be even more valuable to figure out what will not change in the future.
