if you have 17 minutes to spare, check out this TED talk by dan ariely about the irrational behavior that we all exhibit when making decisions.  this kind of behavioral analysis can be vitally important to business.

we make decisions every day from something as seemingly simple as what tasks to prioritize first, or as complex and important as what million dollar software contract to purchase over another.  and not only that, but we sell other people on making decisions every day too, from which teammates to promote, to what projects to continue funding.  if we can get a better understanding of how we make decisions, we can begin to shape our work environments to be more beneficial to us.

it’s strange to think that, in a world where information is so ubiquitous, there would be any kind of trouble making decisions.  as you see, however, from the examples that dan ariely shows us — information is not the only factor which affects our logical process.  knowing our cognitive limitations, and how to exploit those limitations, may be the next big thing in business.