President's Conference / 2

I suppose that the story begins about three weeks ago when the Occupational Psychologist (OP) asked me whether I wanted to go to a lecture by Dan Ariely. She had given me his book, "Predictably Irrational", about a year before and I had enjoyed reading it (even though she gave me the Hebrew translation), so I jumped at the chance at seeing the man.

About a week later, I received via email an invitation to the President's Conference; whilst I was flattered that I had received the invitation, I was bewildered as to why I had received it. Only a few days later in a conversation with the OP, I discovered that Dan Ariely would be giving his lecture within the framework of the conference. Even so, it was difficult at first to find where and when he was due to appear; it later transpires that he was a popular guest who was assigned several appearances.

After I wrote yesterday's blog about the opening evening, I considered my options. I realised that it might be better to turn up after Ariely had finished a lecture than before. As he was due to appear at 11:30am, I wouldn't have to leave work at 10am but could delay my departure until noon. Whilst I was mulling this over, I had a brainwave and sent him an email detailing my failure to meet him the previous evening and asking whether we could arrange a time and a place to meet. Whilst there was a good chance that the email would be ignored (because it was sent to his university address), there was also a good chance that I would receive a reply.

Two minutes after sending the email, I received a call on my cellphone from an unrecognised number. Could it be Dan himself on the phone? Not quite: it was the OP asking how I came home the previous evening and what my further plans were. We were intending to go today (Thursday) but it transpired that Dan was appearing in yet another panel yesterday afternoon at 4:30pm, a much more congenial time. We agreed to set off at 3:30pm.

After the phone call, I returned to my work environment and discovered that I had received a reply from Dan saying that he would be available after all his lectures; he also enclosed his mobile telephone number in case that we didn't meet!

Fast forward a few hours; the OP, her family and I are sitting in a much smaller hall, watching Israeli television journalist (and lawyer) Ilana Dayan. She will be interviewing five people, one of whom will be Dan Ariely. Her guests were (in order) Arieh Der'i (a meteor in Israeli politics who was convicted of receiving a bribe and who has just returned from a five year cooling off period), Lord David Trimble (Member of the British Parliament ; First Minister of Northern Ireland; Former Leader, Ulster Unionist Party; 1998 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate), Professor Larry Summers (Charles W. Eliot University Professor, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; President Emeritus, Harvard University; Former Director of the White House National Economic Council, Obama Administration), Jibril Rajoub (Palestinian Authority, Senior Fatah leader; Former head, Palestinian Security Force; Member, Fatah Central Committee; Head, Palestinian Football Federation and the Palestine Olympic Committee) and Dan the Man.

All of the first four interviews were very interesting, Lord Trimble especially. But as their contents were political and this is not a political blog, I won't go into what they said. Dan Ariely, on the other hand, seemed slightly out of place with his heavyweight confreres; he told a few more anecdotes from his book and went into more detail about his accident, his recovery and his interest in pain.

Once the session was over, I quickly walked the few yards which separated the speakers and dignified guests from the hoi polloi. Someone had got to Dan before me, also with a copy of his book, so I had to wait before I had a chance to speak. Then someone else entered the conversation, asking how long Dan would be in Israel and where else he would be speaking. Dan gave this person a few details and then said to send him an email; at this point I intervened and said that Dan answers his emails very promptly! I then gave him (Dan) my books and he began to sign. He commented that the books were in English, and I replied that I did have the first book in Hebrew but it took me so long to read that I preferred to read the English versions (I believe that the books were first written in English and then translated into Hebrew). 

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At this point, I asked why Dan had spoken in English all through the interview (simultaneous translation into Hebrew via headphones) whilst we were speaking in Hebrew now. I briefly considered that he might have been denying his Israeli roots, but this wasn't the reason. He asked Ilana Dayan (who was standing behind me) why indeed the interview was conducted in English, and she replied that she had been asked to do so. I note that about 75% of the interview with Jibril Rajoub was conducted in Hebrew, the rest being in English. Strange.

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As the session had overrun, the ushers were firmly ushering us out of the hall so they could set up for the next session, meaning that my brief meeting had concluded. As I turned away, I obviously made some strange body movement for suddenly a muscle in my chest contracted and stayed contracted, giving me severe pain for about fifteen minutes until the muscle relaxed. During this time, I was vigorously rubbing my chest and looking for a place where I could sit down without being mobbed.

Only when I got home did I find out what Dan had written in the books. As 70% of his body had been severely burned in his accident, he still has problems writing ("my hands don’t work very well, and typing causes a great amount of pain", his email) so I wasn't surprised that it was very hard to read what he had written. I think that in "Predictably Irrational", he had written "Irrationally yours", and his dedication in "The upside of Irrationality" appears below. I was slightly surprised to notice that my name appears in both dedications as he hadn't asked me my name; he obviously read it off my name tag.

Next time around: my thoughts on getting authors and musicians to sign books/records.

President's Conference

I spent yesterday afternoon/early evening in the Jerusalem Conference Centre, where I was attending the opening plenum session of the President's Conference. The conference, which runs over three days, is by invitation only, but judging by the 4,000 strong crowd, it's not clear what the criteria for invitation were (especially as I had wangled an invitation).

The opening session was entitled "My recipe for a better tomorrow", and the opening speaker was Prof. Dan Ariely who is a behavioural psychologist and the main reason for me attending. His fifteen minute talk was mainly taken from his book "The upside of irrationality" which I had bought (and read) about a month ago, so he didn't really provide me with any new information. His talk centred around how we tend to chose options which gratify us now instead of choosing harder or more painful options which will benefit us in the future. As he puts it, "How many people ate more than they should have this week? How many people exercised less than they should have?". Ariely told about an episode in his life when he was diagnosed with Hepatitis C and was told to inject himself with interferon; this treatment caused sickness, vomiting and general malaise. He managed to minimise the negative psychological affects of the treatment by combining them with an activity which he found extremely pleasant, namely watching movies. What does this have to do with his recipe for a better tomorrow? Better to do the unpleasant things today so that we might have a better tomorrow than do the pleasant things today (which might well lead to a worse tomorrow).

Second up was Sir Martin Sorrell; his talk was a slightly hit and miss affair. First he would mention an interesting subject, talk about it for a few minutes and then say that he wasn't here to talk about this subject. Eventually he did get onto the subject which he was to talk about: city administration. Apparently, in fifty years time there will be about 350 cities with a population greater than one million, and the task of administering these cities will be immense. He believes than government and local authorities must find a way of working together and improving the face of society (my words).

Next was Jimmy Wales, the founder of Wikipedia. Whilst this talk was very interesting, it had little to do with a recipe for a better tomorrow (or maybe it was because I was nodding off at this stage).

Then came the speaker who was added at the last minute but seemed to be the most popular of all: Shakira. I had expected an air-head, but she turned out to be more than sensible. Her recipe for a better tomorrow was education, education, education. She talked about her visit that morning to a joint Israeli/Palestinian school (footage of this was shown on the evening news) and the work that her foundation has done in Columbia: every child who enrolls in school stands a much better chance of not becoming a terrorist or a drug smuggler.

Closing the show was American comic Sara Silverman. I have to admit that this name caused me to raise an eyebrow when I saw it listed in the programme, and true to form, this part of the evening was the lowest. It was totally irrelevant (and slightly hard to understand) but a short clip made the evening news. Obviously there is more publicity attached to being a comic actress than a successful behavioural economist, a successful businessman or the founder of Wikipedia.

After the session ended, there was an hour or so of 'mingling', during which I hoped to meet Dan Ariely and have him sign my copies of his books. Unfortunately, the halls were so crowded with people that I never saw him (he might have already left the building). I did come face to face with the current Israeli Justice Minister Ya'akov Ne'eman (I couldn't think of his name; all I could remember was Yuval Ne'eman, who was a successful particle physicist and science minister before dying) and the one time Minister for Pensioners, Rafi Eitan, but no Dan Ariely.

Professor Ariely is scheduled to take part in another plenary session today at 11:30am, entitled "Who will triumph in the marketing battle of tomorrow" and again on Thursday afternoon in a session entitled "how well does the science of economics understand economics". My MBA training has prepared me well for both subjects, but unless I get extremely bored at work by 10am, I think that I will skip today and go again tomorrow. Of course, there is no guarantee that I will get to meet Ariely, but logically the more times that I go, the higher are my chances. Also, yesterday probably had the highest attendance due to the presence of President Peres, Tony Blair and of course Shakira.

Here is someone else's take on Ms Silverman. It just goes to show how two people can be at the same event and interpret in completely differently.