GE Adventure

So I may be a little obsessed with behavioral economics, but this article about how Obama is using it had some gems for both energy and health.

Which message would persuade homeowners to save electricity: a call to their environmental conscience, or an appeal to their wallet? Cialdini tested those approaches in a San Diego experiment, and the answer was neither. What worked was an appeal to conformity. Residents used less power when they were told their neighbors were using less power. We’re a herdlike species, more likely to be obese if our peers are.

Interesting to think about, especially as part of smart-grid applications. Maybe just showing savings isn’t enough.

And this quote about health data, while not exactly about behavioral economics is worth sharing/thinking about:

More information can make us healthier too, which is why the stimulus poured $1.1 billion into “comparative effectiveness” research. Orszag has reams of charts showing that medical tactics and costs vary wildly across the country, with little regard for what works. He’d like to document best practices — from emergency-room to-do lists that dramatically reduce infections to protocols for when pricey tests and surgeries really help — and then have all medical providers adopt them. This approach has helped American anesthesiologists reduce deaths as well as costs.

How can GE help to make more of this data public, available and easily sharable between both medical organizations and individuals?