 Hello and welcome to my latest book review. I am joining you this evening, literally just off the plane here in Brussels and I would like to take you through my experience of reading 50 things that made the modern economy and it's by Tim Harford. This is a very well known book and it is one that took me a while to read but it wasn't a difficult read and just a very reflective read. So before I start telling you about what's in the book I just want to first of all point out who might be interested in picking up this book and having read it. Two people in particular. The first one is the person who's tired. The person who is tired of constantly thinking, constantly problem solving in their own business and what they would like to be able to do is just to stop and be transported into another world. But they don't read fiction because that they might think isn't exactly the best use of time. They still want to do something very productive and this I have to say is perfect for that. So I'll tell you where I bought this. For my brother-in-law's 50th, we went to Le Hinge and specifically we stayed in the cliffs of our hotel at Lourdes and I went down the day before on my own and I said I'm going to take a day out and I have to say the scanner is just one of the most beautiful parts of the world. So I said I'm going to take a day out and I'm going to do exactly what I just said to you and I'm just going to stop thinking and I'm just going to reflect. So I was in the Le Hinge bookshop and that's where I picked this up. So I started reading and I'm not joking you. This draws you right in. It draws you right in. I'm telling you it does because what it does is it gives you 50 small case studies of inventions that have completely changed the way we live. So what it does is it draws you into this place of where you start thinking through, oh yeah so since that happened then that led on to something else which led on to different business models and so on and so on from there. The second type of person who I think would really enjoy this is the person who wants to challenge assumptions. Now when you think about some sort of business models like Airbnb, Airbnb challenged the idea that you would take somebody who you don't know at all into your house, walk away, leave them there and expect them to treat your house as you do yourself and that was an assumption that people assumed could never be the case and Airbnb thought about that and said hold on now, hold on now. What if we could do something about that so that we could in fact create an environment where people could make money out of their homes when they're abroad themselves or when they're away or if they have a spare room or they have a second house or whatever. So if you are somebody where you're trying to be innovative and you're trying to think and you're trying to look at things differently. I had a phone call yesterday morning, a Skype call with somebody who said there's really no point in doing things over and over again that don't work but how can I come up with new ideas that may or may not and this is where this book comes in is because it just makes you think and stand in the shoes of other people who thought like that and led to completely unintended consequences. So I'm going to give you three examples right of the 50. So I got in a flight today, left Dublin airport, flew over here to Brussels and then got to my accommodation where I am now and now I'm sitting here talking to you. Okay, something that I do regularly, something that you've done I'm sure many times. So what is it about my journey this evening? A rose because of somebody challenging assumptions. Well, one of them, right, one of them and the one that I'm going to tell you about is of the 50, it is number 22. Number 22 here, sorry, now that's very hard to see. Number 22 is the elevator and if you think about the elevator, think about what the invention of the elevator may happen. You might say, okay, well it made sense that if somebody is going up steps, now they can go up faster and also if somebody can't climb steps because they may have a physical issue, well then it enables them to rise. Yes, and that would be what I would have thought too. Okay, but the thing is what the elevator enabled was a safe way to move people literally vertically up into skyscrapers, which therefore enabled far more people to live in cities. And it also meant that people could build buildings that were going to be able for a lot more people to work in, to live in and to be safe in. So if I think about it this evening, as I was in Dublin Airport, because they have various different levels enabled by the elevator, it enables something like Dublin Airport to be a lot more concise in the geographical area. It's able to be in a much smaller area as a result simply of the elevator. So when you think of skyscrapers in, let's say New York is usually the place that we might think of or San Fran or Hong Kong or Sydney or wherever, think about how much wider that urban sprawl would be without the elevator. So that's the first one. The second one is where I am right here at the moment. The place that I decided to stay in, I had researched. I had researched so I knew where it was. I knew what it was going to be like to be here. I knew what it was going to be close to and so on like that. And the only reason that I did, you could say is because it has a website and because the internet facilitated this. True. However, to take this point further, what I would also say is actually that's because of seller feedback. It is going back to the Airbnb idea. It's because people leave their own comments on things like TripAdvisor.com. And that seller feedback has created so, so, so, so, so much. It has led to a lot of unintended consequences. So just to give you an example, yes, it enables me to really get an understanding of where I'm going to go and where I'm going to stay as a woman travelling on her own. It's enabling me to have that information through the eyes of somebody that's been here performing. But also what that has also led to is completely different marketing. Is that now, rather than let's say buying expensive marketing space or advertising space, now what influence or marketing is totally enabled as a result of seller feedback. And the other thing as well is that seller feedback has led to buyer feedback also. If you think about it, if I was to stay here and I, let's say that this was Airbnb instead, well then what the provider, the accommodation provider could also rate me. So I got a My Taxi today, I used the app My Taxi to get today because it was a fantastic event this afternoon and I had to get to the airport really quickly. Now, I used My Taxi to pay in the taxi and to get there and that's all great. But if there was negative feedback left by the taxi driver about me as the buyer, well then I may not be able to use that app anymore. So what seller feedback has actually led to is a lot more unintended consequences around accountability of the sale. And the third one that I'm going to pick up on this evening, right, is that I, as I was landing down into into Brussels, well, I wasn't landing anything. It was the pilot obviously was doing that. But you might think, okay, so you land in Brussels and I got off on my merry way and scrabbled in here into the city centre. But if you think about it, what enabled me to land? Yes, an airplane. Yes, a pilot. Yes, an airport. Yes, airspace. Yes, EU regulation. See what this book does to you. This is what it does. It makes you think and think and think and think of all the other elements that happen that lead to unintended consequences. But the key thing, the key thing that enabled me to land in Brussels today was radar, was actually the invention of radar, was to enable yes, that airspace and that airport and that pilot all to communicate together and to coordinate all of the planes that land in Brussels airport simultaneously so that they don't crash into each other. So in fact, actually, it is the radar that underpins the entire air travel. And that is what I mean is that you just get transported. You get transported away into a place where you start thinking through, hmm, this leads to this leads to the other leads to that leads to the other again, and so on and so on from there. And I'm telling you, you cannot think about your own business as you read this book, because what it does is, as I say, it just encapsulates you. Now, I finished the book. I told you where you started it. So that particular occasion, my brother-in-law's birthday, that particular occasion happened at the start of October. I finished it. I finished this book on a nine and a half hour train journey from Nha Trang to Da Nang in Vietnam when I was on holidays. And the reason that I mentioned that is because it's a super holiday read. It's a super holiday read for business people, or for people who think a lot about their business or their career or whatever else. It's a super, super, super read. And I tell you, what will happen is that you put down that book several times, you put down the book and you'll just go off and you start thinking, and then it really will spur you on to challenge assumptions and to think, what if this happened or what if this didn't happen? Or what if I could turn that on its head? That is what this book does to you. So there's three particular things that I wanted to mention about how I have used this as that type of read in my business. The first of all is I've learned to appreciate, really, really appreciate consequences. And this book has taught me how to think five steps ahead. So if X happens, how does that lead to Y, which affects Z, which influences A, which directly impacts number two, three and four in an equation that leads to an output of O. That's what it does. And it does take you through that. There's a very global perspective in this. Lots and lots of stories, you know, they start off with such and such a person was in Kenya and then. Or there was one story actually about radar in particular that speaks about it starts off with the, I was only talking about it the other day to somebody, the volcano in Iceland that erupted, for example. So it brings you on a very global journey and it brings you back in history. It brings you back to the world war. It brings you back to conversations that were had pre-accounting. That's one of the 50 things actually is the double entry system and accounting and what that has led to and accountability and auditing and financial statements and all that sort of thing. And it also very interesting one about market research is how market research started. And the thing is you often think, but you didn't everybody research the market before they got into business. Well, no, why, why would you think that? Why would you think that something was always there because it wasn't somebody had to start it and it probably didn't start with the outcome like he talks with the iPhone, for example. The iPhone didn't just create out of the iPhone. Apple didn't just come up with the iPhone. It came from an iteration of several other things before that. So that is what this book has done for me is that it's given me that type of a focus on looking at things and thinking things through five steps ahead. I watched a documentary. I always watch documentaries when I travel and I watched a documentary on Angela Merkel one night. Very interesting actually about her whole history. And again, she is a woman that has honed that skill of thinking about consequences because she's a chemist. She's a PhD in chemistry. So she's always thinking about chemical reactions of A and B or to be combined together. What would she look like and how would that affect things? So that's how she does it. But this is my way. I'm not going to be doing PhD in chemistry. I did it with a leaving search. Great subject, but that'll be where it stops. Anyway, so that is one of the key things. The key business outcomes are practical outputs that I got from this book. The second thing is, and I've mentioned this now a couple of times. It has taught me how a kind of a behavioral mindset around challenging assumptions. And I do all the time now I think about, okay, so what if I didn't have internet at all in a certain place? What would that lead me to do? Or what if we, right, here's one that I've really thought about. What about if we were to eliminate air travel, right? So forget about the radar. And what about if we were to think about, if we were to eliminate air travel and simply think about using under the ground to travel? Like Hyperloop, as many of you might have heard about what Elon Musk is trying to do now about, say, joining cities right around the world using hyperfast, like hyper, hyper, hyperfast trains under the ground. Removing gravity so that you can travel in a vacuum the same way that particles arrive at a TV screen. And if we were to do that, what would that do to the world? So that would clear completely clear airspace, for example. What would that do to the hospitality industry around airports? What would that do to connectivity? What would that do to hubs? What would that do for all of the people employed in that particular area? What would that do for structural engineers? What would that do for, and so on and so on? So that's what this book has done. And when you do that, you start revealing things about your own business where you start to challenge ideas or challenge your own thinking. That can be very refreshing. It can be really, really, really refreshing. And now, it may be refreshing for you, not for everyone around you, but that's their problem. But no, I really do mean it, though. It can lead you to thinking a constantly of new things. Now, some of my own staff say, oh, here she comes now with another idea. And a lot of it can come from this. Now, some of my ideas work. Some of them don't. But it's a great way of creating ideation in your mind. And therefore, also, you can bring that. And when you can codify how to do that, like Tim does. Tim, my friend now who's on first name terms with me, it's a really helpful skill. And the third thing is your brain needs a break. It does need a break a lot of the time. And it is only from giving your brain a break that you will allow good ideas to come from nowhere to actually let that inspiration come up through and aerate through your brain. I often find that I love flying, right? I love the literal blue sky thinking that's around me. When I'm up at the clouds, some people might say I spend a lot of time there. Anyway, sorry, I'm only laughing to that myself. But if I spend a lot of the time, when you're literally in the sky and the clouds are surrounding you, you have a very bird's eye vision. And none of this is a myth for us. I find it's a great space to think. But if you think about it, I don't have Wi-Fi. The laptop can only do whatever is on it. I can't talk to anybody, person, person to the left or to the right of me. But I can't just be distracted by my phone. And that's what this book does is it transports me into that type of a mindset. So on that note, I'm going to thank you very much for joining me. I can see the people who've been here. So I'm going to wave. I can see the people from Ireland and Australia have been on this live stream. So I'm very appreciative of that. This, of course, is going out in our monthly newsletter, which will be arriving. For those of you who signed up for it on the positiveeconomist.com, it will be arriving into your inbox very soon. And between now and my next book review, which I will be happily telling you about next month, I wish you an absolutely fantastic February, fantastic Valentine's and fantastic mind space thinking. Thank you and good night. Thank you.