Your hosts Erik Johnson and Zarak Khan introduce themselves and give listeners a brief insight into what Action Design stands for. The format of the Action Design Radio podcast is discussed. 

The following podcast series will have at least one expert guest per episode. Erik and Zarak will have detailed conversations with leading researchers and practitioners about the latest and greatest ways in which behavioral science is being used in both the public and private sectors. There will always be a focus on positive social impact, such as how people can use these behavioral science concepts to improve their own well-being, their careers, and their communities. 

Zarak Khan is an Associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, where he supports the National Science Foundation and leads the firm's internal team of consultants working on behavioral economics. He has volunteered with Action Design since 2014, led the DC chapter from 2014-2015, and has served as President since fall of 2015.

Erik Johnson is a part of the Behavioral Insights Team at Morningstar, which uses behavioral science to help people engage with and improve their finances. His role focuses on applying behavioral science principles to marketing processes and communications. Erik previously led the NYC chapter of Action Design and is now on the Action Design Network's Board of Directors.

Introductory Mini Episode - What We Are And Who We Are

In our second episode, “Hindsight, Rewards, and How Practitioners Can Apply Behavioral Science Research,” Zarak and Erik are joined by Mariel Beasley, Senior Applied Researcher at Duke University’s Center for Advanced Hindsight and Co-Director of the Common Cents Lab. Mariel explores how people defy the rational agent model when making decisions around money, health, relationships, trust, and more. In addition to contributing to the field of Behavioral Economics (BE), she works with organizations to help them develop, apply, and test BE-inspired strategies to get people to save more money, exercise more, eat healthier, establish better self-control, and more to promote individual and social well-being.

Soundbites:

“Great, we know things like the endowment effect exists, the ostrich effect exists. Now it’s how do we tell businesses to use these things?”
 
“When hiring for applied, we’ve started asking applicants to go through this assessment…almost always one of the tasks is to read an academic paper and then record yourself giving a three-minute explanation of that paper to a lay audience. So we basically early on try to assess: Can you read and understand research? And could you explain to the practitioner side, the non-research side, why you would suggest something based on this paper?”

Mariel Beasley - Hindsight, Rewards, and How Practitioners Can Apply Behavioral Science

Dr. Rory Gallagher shares his journey from academia to government. As an original 2010 member of the U.K.’s Behavioural Insights Team (popularly referred to as the “Nudge Unit”), Gallagher has since relocated to Sydney's B.I.T. as the Managing Director for Australia and the Asia-Pacific region.

This episode focuses on the application of behavioral concepts to government in order to create better public policies and services that benefit citizens in myriad ways. Rory has made a career out of applying behavioral science to government by focusing on the social impact that nudges can have. These examples are explored in greater detail in his book that he co-authored with Owain Service, “Think Small: The Surprisingly Simple Ways to Reach Big Goals,” published in April 2017.

Soundbite:

Rory on his hesitance to embrace "Think Small" being labeled as a “self-help” book:

“What we found is that many of those (self-help) books don’t bring those different behavioral tools together, and they don’t do it in an evidence-based way. So that was our attempt, I guess, to do that.  And quite often what our team tries to do is give people a simple framework – often it’s public servants – for using these tools.”