I'll Have What She's Having: Mapping Social Behavior (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life) Hardcover – August 26, 2011

I really enjoyed it, it has interesting facts and its a really easy to read book! If you are looking for some behavioral economics information and social learning facts this could be an option.

The book covers the topic of how and why ideas spread. Overall, it is reminiscent of Gladwell's "The Tipping Point", but may years on and with fewer anecdotes and better references.The title comes from a scene in "When Harry Met Sally". After observing a seated woman apparently having an orgasm, a customer tells the waiter: "I'll have what she's having".The book offers an evolution-free interpretation of cultural change. However, culture is an evolutionary process - and, without evolutionary theory, scientific approaches to cultural change are poorly grounded. The main result is that this book is very basic. Without the ability to draw on existing evolutionary theory, all the fundamental topics need to be reinvented. The authors do this, but don't get far beyond the topics of "diffusion" and "cascades". Peter Richerson gets one mention. Robert Boyd gets one mention. Joe Henrich gets one mention. Memes get an entry in the index - but no actual content. There is one mention of "mind viruses" - but that's about a close as the authors get to the concept of cultural evolution. Instead of talking about "epidemics"the authors stick to biology-free terminology - "avalanches", "wildfires" - and so on.For an evolution-free discussion of cultural evolution the book is quite good. However, without evolutionary theory, the book is stuck in a pre-Darwinian mindset that forces the authors to reinvent the wheel and leaves the book conceptually lagging behind other treatments of the topic.

The title speaks by itself...It is not that it is a bad book, but there other better things to spend your time on

This is a terrific read. I've been a big fan of Mar's earlier books but this book feels like the zenith of all his work. Along with his co-writers, 'I'll Have What She's Having' shows how we are truly social animals, not individual agents or 'homo economicus'. It's chock full of great examples of behavior that supports this but more importantly is full of important data driven analysis that shows we are, more often than not, a species driven to copy.It's a muxt read for anyone interested in what really makes us tick and crucial for anyone who works in business where they need to change people's behavior

I like this book. Thank you.

The main point is supremely important to anyone who wants to influence people. We are a 'we' species, not a 'me' species. This has implications for messaging, for education, for choice architecture, and for consumer and psych research. For instance, it raises serious questions about our habit of directly asking people why they do or buy or listen to certain things: no one would ever admit they wear Uggs (or drink Budweiser or listen to Rihanna) just because others do. "No, I think for myself and choose what I like. It expresses my individuality. It tastes better. Etc."The book itself is conversational, but it's also extremely dense. A single page might reference fractal geometry, Walmart, the long tail, cascade evolution, cognition, and slang trends. Wait--one page actually does reference all that. If you've read about these theories before, you'll be able to follow along better. If not, it might come across as a rich, sweet pastry of cool theories.The ending was a bit unsatisfying. First, they point out that we basically can't predict trends--which is true if we expect 100% accuracy, but it's not universal. Even their own analogy about weather forecasts points out how much we actually can predict on micro and macro scales (el Nino, heat waves, storm tracking, daily forecasts, etc). Second, on the very last page, they suggest their theory of social copying could be tested with some datasets. I wish that was part of the book, and I look forward to seeing the research when it' done.Still, for breadth, for the main thesis, and for brevity, it's a great read.

"I'll Have What She's Having" severs the Gordian-like knots that currently entangle our culture, human behavioral norms and conventions.I recommend this book and especially its conceptual map within, which considers "...populations different than individuals. Even when individual decisions are defined very simply, their aggregate effects at the population scale" show how often our behavior default is to simply copy others.As the authors describe there's choice, guesses and directed copying of experts, but the real gem is the map corner depicting 'undirected' copying. This is where there are many seemingly similar options (as well as many people involved). All too often, societies look to government and institutions for solutions to remedy what only culture can deliver.`Undirected' copying is an unexpected story weave, so let's savor this book and apply its map to understand "Social Learning, En Masse," Chapter 4 and how to better create "Cascades," Chapter 5.

The title of this study of social behavior comes from the Katz Deli scene in the romantic comedy When Harry Met Sally. One woman observes another appearing to have an orgasm at a nearby table and tells the waiter: "I'll have what she's having." The title serves as useful shorthand for the human practices of imitation, replication and diffusion of ideas. Academics Alex Bentley and Michael J. O'Brien and consultant Mark Earls offer lucid prose and easy-to-follow examples in their fine introduction to social behavior. getAbstract recommends their insights to those interested in greater self-knowledge, social change, or marketing and innovation.

The title references the famous 'fake orgasm' scene from When Harry Met Sally. It might lead you to think this is a bit of jolly romp through the social behaviour of humans, perhaps heavy on cultural references and light on science. In fact the opposite is the case. This is heavy going for anyone not already familiar with some of the basic understandings about human behaviour. Even if you are, you may finish the book and wonder what exactly it is that you've learned and how on earth you might apply it. Not an easy read. I may have to go back and read it again.

The core idea behind this book, and the author's previous book 'Herd', is that we are not rational, straightforward decision making machines who cooly judge all of the available options and select the best fit. No, we are copying machines. We will seek to find comfort in our actions by copying others around us.It's a big idea. It fundamentally changes how you perceive a lot of things in and around business. It's tricky to get your head around at first too, but this book really lays out a splendid, concise take on the idea that strips away as much unnecessary complexity as possible, and starts you thinking about how it might apply to what you do.What's more, there's also a really useful model for looking at the patterns in the data of your business, and seeing to what extent you might in in an individual choice market, or indeed a market in which social choice and the copying of others is an intrinsic part.Thought-provoking, enlightening and useful. Copy me and read it before everyone else does... ;)

When you look at childrens' names popularity evolution based on US census data some similar patterns appear with shape of the curve strikingly alike. Social diffusion mechanics is at work here and its effects can be mathematically measured and analyzed. That's basically what's the book about. I guess it was intended to provide a short guide through different theories of social diffusion but instead it does not seem to be a coherent material, rather a set of a bit superficially connected essays on the general topic of social diffusion. Enough story for an in depth article in popular science magazine, apparently not enough for a book which is by the way a very short read of merely 140 pages. The book offers some solid evidence illustrating social processes of ideas spreading across the societies but lack of one single thread joining different hypothesis together does not make it an easy read. Gladwell in his "Tipping point" seemed to be focusing his thoughts on the right people as a prerequisite for ideas to become contagious. Looking for different skills, backgrounds, personal traits of people was a motive putting the pieces of the puzzle of his book together. There is no such a motive here, I have not grasp it at least. (obviously Gladwell was more about popular then science). Some parts of the book, though interesting in itself do not seem to fit the rest, specifically language structure or economical "games" in primitive societies sections seem to be missing the context and offer no clearly stated connection with main idea behind the book. At the end I was not quite sure what was the book about, though its last chapter seems to be best organized and finally offering some systematized piece of knowledge. So if you are not really interested in this kind of topics or are just looking for well structured narrative that would give you some basic facts or some overview, this should not be your first choice.