This Is the Best Blog Post of the Year — Nudge, Nudge
The waitress said that the cheesecake was one of the best in the city. So I ordered it. Otherwise I wasn’t really that interested in dessert, but if it really is the best, I have to know. That is a nudge. 
The book “Nudge: Improving Decisions about Health, Wealth and Happiness” is a good read for all who are marketers or marketers at heart. Nudge is a book about getting people to act in their own best interest. Here is the rub: This all depends on one’s view about who decides what is in someone else’s best interest.
It’s a book about behavioral economics and one of my favorite subjects — incentives, or what Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein call “nudges.” Even rearranging the offerings in a school cafeteria so healthy foods are offered first, at eye level, and easy to put on a tray can dramatically change how people select food and make healthier choices. That is a nudge done by someone else so you can act in your own (better) self-interest.
There are also people who are described as “choice architects.” People in health care are always looking for better ways for people to access care and make better decisions. A web designer is also a choice architect. User experience is determined by choice architects who help provide choice and nudges for people to follow.
If you want a good read about behavioral economics, this one will nudge you in the right direction.
Mark Mathis
Mark wrote his first direct-mail fundraising letter in 1981 for the University of Iowa Center for Advancement. The effort raised a few million dollars in undiscovered wills and legacy gifts. From that day forward Mark discovered a love of the big idea that moves the needle.
After 12 years at KWWL, Mark became a business owner as a co-founder of ME&V — rebranded as AMPERAGE in 2015. After 25 years of leading creative teams in video production, graphic design, PR, writing and web development, Mark transitioned out of ownership in 2021. Today he serves in an employee role as special projects consultant.
He is creatively ambidextrous — son of an artist and engineer — and famous for distilling complex ideas down to a few words and a few visuals. Mark is a writer. When he found that many nonprofits struggled with complex branding puzzles, he wrote the book, “NonProfit-NonMarketing .” He also wrote a novel called “Reenactment.”
Mark is an active blogger OneMinuteMarketer® with nearly 1,000 readers each week on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter. One of his most popular YouTube videos is on “How to Look Good on Zoom.”
One of Mark’s fondest business memories was being named to INC 500 two times and attending the INC 500 conference with other winners. Mark is considered by some a Civil War expert (and that explains his novel). Mark also served as an adjunct professor in the business and in the communications departments at Wartburg College.
Mark is a graduate of the University of Iowa and is currently vice president of the University of Iowa Journalism and Mass Communications Advisory Board.
Mark is married to state Sen. Liz Mathis, and the two love to travel, even when it means being trapped by a volcano in the Czech Republic for three weeks.