Podcast appearances and mentions of john balz

The application of behavioral science inside government has gained steam over the past few years with the creation of so-called “Nudge units” popping up in countries around the world. Their goals are simple: Use the lessons of behavioral science to make government work better. The Behavioural Insights Team in the United Kingdom and the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences team in the U.S. Canada has a team now. Australia. Singapore. All the Scandinavian countries. Behavioral science teams now have a bit of buzz.  Before this buzz, there was BIAS – the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project, the first major opportunity to apply a behavioral science lens to programs that serve poor and vulnerable families in the United States. The project, which began in 2010 funded through the Administration of Children and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services, sought to apply behavioral insights to issues related to the design and implementation of social service programs and policies with a goal of learn how such tools could be used to improve the well-being of low-income children, adults, and families. The non-profit education and social policy organization MDRC led the project. (Disclosure: I worked on BIAS in 2010-2011 at one of the partner organizations, ideas42, also participating.) Traditionally, many social programs were designed in ways that individuals must make active decisions and go through a series of steps in order to benefit from them. They must decide which programs to apply to or participate in, complete forms, attend meetings, show proof of eligibility, and arrange travel and child care. Program designers have often assumed that individuals will carefully consider options, analyze details, and make decisions that maximize their well-being. BIAS drew heavily from that past three decades of research in the behavioral sciences showing that human decision making is often imperfect and imprecise. People clients and program administrators alike procrastinate, get overwhelmed by choices, miss details, lose their self-control, rely on mental shortcuts, and permit small changes in the environment to influence their decisions. As a result, programs and participants may not always achieve the goals they set for themselves. Working through ACF programs, the BIAS team designed and tested 15 behaviorally-informed interventions in seven states involving nearly 100,000 people. Many of the interventions involved a redesign of communications materials. Projects ranged from increasing child support collections, to improving child care recertification processes, to changing messaging around TANF participation. Along the way, BIAS researchers published a series of reports laying out not just which designs worked and didn’t, but how they went about implementing the designs in difficult bureaucratic and technological environments and when they faced challenges that altered their work. A final report is due out later this year. Of the 15 interventions, 11 showed positive signs of impact, making the overall project today one proof point among a growing number about the promise of applying insights from behavioral science to make government work better.   John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The application of behavioral science inside government has gained steam over the past few years with the creation of so-called “Nudge units” popping up in countries around the world. Their goals are simple: Use the lessons of behavioral science to make government work better. The Behavioural Insights Team in the United Kingdom and the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences team in the U.S. Canada has a team now. Australia. Singapore. All the Scandinavian countries. Behavioral science teams now have a bit of buzz.  Before this buzz, there was BIAS – the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project, the first major opportunity to apply a behavioral science lens to programs that serve poor and vulnerable families in the United States. The project, which began in 2010 funded through the Administration of Children and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services, sought to apply behavioral insights to issues related to the design and implementation of social service programs and policies with a goal of learn how such tools could be used to improve the well-being of low-income children, adults, and families. The non-profit education and social policy organization MDRC led the project. (Disclosure: I worked on BIAS in 2010-2011 at one of the partner organizations, ideas42, also participating.) Traditionally, many social programs were designed in ways that individuals must make active decisions and go through a series of steps in order to benefit from them. They must decide which programs to apply to or participate in, complete forms, attend meetings, show proof of eligibility, and arrange travel and child care. Program designers have often assumed that individuals will carefully consider options, analyze details, and make decisions that maximize their well-being. BIAS drew heavily from that past three decades of research in the behavioral sciences showing that human decision making is often imperfect and imprecise. People clients and program administrators alike procrastinate, get overwhelmed by choices, miss details, lose their self-control, rely on mental shortcuts, and permit small changes in the environment to influence their decisions. As a result, programs and participants may not always achieve the goals they set for themselves. Working through ACF programs, the BIAS team designed and tested 15 behaviorally-informed interventions in seven states involving nearly 100,000 people. Many of the interventions involved a redesign of communications materials. Projects ranged from increasing child support collections, to improving child care recertification processes, to changing messaging around TANF participation. Along the way, BIAS researchers published a series of reports laying out not just which designs worked and didn’t, but how they went about implementing the designs in difficult bureaucratic and technological environments and when they faced challenges that altered their work. A final report is due out later this year. Of the 15 interventions, 11 showed positive signs of impact, making the overall project today one proof point among a growing number about the promise of applying insights from behavioral science to make government work better.   John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The application of behavioral science inside government has gained steam over the past few years with the creation of so-called “Nudge units” popping up in countries around the world. Their goals are simple: Use the lessons of behavioral science to make government work better. The Behavioural Insights Team in the United Kingdom and the White House Social and Behavioral Sciences team in the U.S. Canada has a team now. Australia. Singapore. All the Scandinavian countries. Behavioral science teams now have a bit of buzz.  Before this buzz, there was BIAS – the Behavioral Interventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency (BIAS) project, the first major opportunity to apply a behavioral science lens to programs that serve poor and vulnerable families in the United States. The project, which began in 2010 funded through the Administration of Children and Families in the Department of Health and Human Services, sought to apply behavioral insights to issues related to the design and implementation of social service programs and policies with a goal of learn how such tools could be used to improve the well-being of low-income children, adults, and families. The non-profit education and social policy organization MDRC led the project. (Disclosure: I worked on BIAS in 2010-2011 at one of the partner organizations, ideas42, also participating.) Traditionally, many social programs were designed in ways that individuals must make active decisions and go through a series of steps in order to benefit from them. They must decide which programs to apply to or participate in, complete forms, attend meetings, show proof of eligibility, and arrange travel and child care. Program designers have often assumed that individuals will carefully consider options, analyze details, and make decisions that maximize their well-being. BIAS drew heavily from that past three decades of research in the behavioral sciences showing that human decision making is often imperfect and imprecise. People clients and program administrators alike procrastinate, get overwhelmed by choices, miss details, lose their self-control, rely on mental shortcuts, and permit small changes in the environment to influence their decisions. As a result, programs and participants may not always achieve the goals they set for themselves. Working through ACF programs, the BIAS team designed and tested 15 behaviorally-informed interventions in seven states involving nearly 100,000 people. Many of the interventions involved a redesign of communications materials. Projects ranged from increasing child support collections, to improving child care recertification processes, to changing messaging around TANF participation. Along the way, BIAS researchers published a series of reports laying out not just which designs worked and didn’t, but how they went about implementing the designs in difficult bureaucratic and technological environments and when they faced challenges that altered their work. A final report is due out later this year. Of the 15 interventions, 11 showed positive signs of impact, making the overall project today one proof point among a growing number about the promise of applying insights from behavioral science to make government work better.   John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cass Sunstein‘s son, Declan, got dad hooked on Star Wars. And dad, a Harvard Law professor, ended up writing a book about it. “If you’d told me a year ago that I’d write a book about Star Wars,” Sunstein recently told the Boston Globe,“I’d say it’s more likely that I’d become an astronaut or a poet.” In The World According to Star Wars (Harper Collins, 2016) Sunstein explores its lessons as they relate to childhood, fathers, the Dark Side and redemption. Calling it our Modern Myth, Sunstein says Star Wars also has a lot to teach us about constitutional law, economics, and political uprisings. From those topics, it answers questions like these. No one predicted the film’s massive success so how did it happen? When Star Wars heroes are told they are free to choose, what does that mean in their epic story world? What does it say about our never-ending ability to make the right decision when the chips are down in our real one? How are constitutional law opinions similar to serialized blockbusters? An intelligent book for a general audience, Sunstein doesn’t shy away from putting on his subjective movie critic’s hat and declaring which Star Wars is the best. Spoiler: He puts Empire Strikes Back at No. 1. Why? Listen to the podcast to find out. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cass Sunstein‘s son, Declan, got dad hooked on Star Wars. And dad, a Harvard Law professor, ended up writing a book about it. “If you’d told me a year ago that I’d write a book about Star Wars,” Sunstein recently told the Boston Globe,“I’d say it’s more likely that I’d become an astronaut or a poet.” In The World According to Star Wars (Harper Collins, 2016) Sunstein explores its lessons as they relate to childhood, fathers, the Dark Side and redemption. Calling it our Modern Myth, Sunstein says Star Wars also has a lot to teach us about constitutional law, economics, and political uprisings. From those topics, it answers questions like these. No one predicted the film’s massive success so how did it happen? When Star Wars heroes are told they are free to choose, what does that mean in their epic story world? What does it say about our never-ending ability to make the right decision when the chips are down in our real one? How are constitutional law opinions similar to serialized blockbusters? An intelligent book for a general audience, Sunstein doesn’t shy away from putting on his subjective movie critic’s hat and declaring which Star Wars is the best. Spoiler: He puts Empire Strikes Back at No. 1. Why? Listen to the podcast to find out. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cass Sunstein‘s son, Declan, got dad hooked on Star Wars. And dad, a Harvard Law professor, ended up writing a book about it. “If you’d told me a year ago that I’d write a book about Star Wars,” Sunstein recently told the Boston Globe,“I’d say it’s more likely that I’d become an astronaut or a poet.” In The World According to Star Wars (Harper Collins, 2016) Sunstein explores its lessons as they relate to childhood, fathers, the Dark Side and redemption. Calling it our Modern Myth, Sunstein says Star Wars also has a lot to teach us about constitutional law, economics, and political uprisings. From those topics, it answers questions like these. No one predicted the film’s massive success so how did it happen? When Star Wars heroes are told they are free to choose, what does that mean in their epic story world? What does it say about our never-ending ability to make the right decision when the chips are down in our real one? How are constitutional law opinions similar to serialized blockbusters? An intelligent book for a general audience, Sunstein doesn’t shy away from putting on his subjective movie critic’s hat and declaring which Star Wars is the best. Spoiler: He puts Empire Strikes Back at No. 1. Why? Listen to the podcast to find out. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cass Sunstein‘s son, Declan, got dad hooked on Star Wars. And dad, a Harvard Law professor, ended up writing a book about it. “If you’d told me a year ago that I’d write a book about Star Wars,” Sunstein recently told the Boston Globe,“I’d say it’s more likely that I’d become an astronaut or a poet.” In The World According to Star Wars (Harper Collins, 2016) Sunstein explores its lessons as they relate to childhood, fathers, the Dark Side and redemption. Calling it our Modern Myth, Sunstein says Star Wars also has a lot to teach us about constitutional law, economics, and political uprisings. From those topics, it answers questions like these. No one predicted the film’s massive success so how did it happen? When Star Wars heroes are told they are free to choose, what does that mean in their epic story world? What does it say about our never-ending ability to make the right decision when the chips are down in our real one? How are constitutional law opinions similar to serialized blockbusters? An intelligent book for a general audience, Sunstein doesn’t shy away from putting on his subjective movie critic’s hat and declaring which Star Wars is the best. Spoiler: He puts Empire Strikes Back at No. 1. Why? Listen to the podcast to find out. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cass Sunstein‘s son, Declan, got dad hooked on Star Wars. And dad, a Harvard Law professor, ended up writing a book about it. “If you’d told me a year ago that I’d write a book about Star Wars,” Sunstein recently told the Boston Globe,“I’d say it’s more likely that I’d become an astronaut or a poet.” In The World According to Star Wars (Harper Collins, 2016) Sunstein explores its lessons as they relate to childhood, fathers, the Dark Side and redemption. Calling it our Modern Myth, Sunstein says Star Wars also has a lot to teach us about constitutional law, economics, and political uprisings. From those topics, it answers questions like these. No one predicted the film’s massive success so how did it happen? When Star Wars heroes are told they are free to choose, what does that mean in their epic story world? What does it say about our never-ending ability to make the right decision when the chips are down in our real one? How are constitutional law opinions similar to serialized blockbusters? An intelligent book for a general audience, Sunstein doesn’t shy away from putting on his subjective movie critic’s hat and declaring which Star Wars is the best. Spoiler: He puts Empire Strikes Back at No. 1. Why? Listen to the podcast to find out. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The landscape described in Bernard Harcourt‘s new book is a dystopia saturated by pleasure. We do not live in a drab Orwellian world, he writes. We live in a beautiful, colorful, stimulating, digital world a rich, bright world full of passion and jouissance–and by means of which we reveal ourselves and make ourselves virtually transparent to surveillance. Exposed: Desire and Disobedience in the Digital Age (Harvard University Press, 2015) guides us through our new digital age, one that makes it so easy for others to monitor, profile, and shape our every desire. We are building what he calls the expository society a platform for unprecedented levels of exhibition, watching, and influence that is reconfiguring our political relations and reshaping our notions of what it means to be an individual. Other actors from advertisers to government agencies can compile huge amounts of information about who we are and what we do. Whether they use it to recommend other products to buy or track our movements, Harcourt argues that the influence and interests of other actors is often hidden from us. Despite leaks of classified materials about the extent of this surveillance, public outrage is limited and mild. The scale of data collection and tracking is not a national let alone a global scandal. According to Exposed, are appetites are too well satisfied and our attentions too distracted. Harcourt prods us to practice digital disobedience, lest we will remain in a digital mesh that will only continue to restrict our privacy and anonymity underneath its beautiful, shiny suit. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The landscape described in Bernard Harcourt‘s new book is a dystopia saturated by pleasure. We do not live in a drab Orwellian world, he writes. We live in a beautiful, colorful, stimulating, digital world a rich, bright world full of passion and jouissance–and by means of which we reveal ourselves and make ourselves virtually transparent to surveillance. Exposed: Desire and Disobedience in the Digital Age (Harvard University Press, 2015) guides us through our new digital age, one that makes it so easy for others to monitor, profile, and shape our every desire. We are building what he calls the expository society a platform for unprecedented levels of exhibition, watching, and influence that is reconfiguring our political relations and reshaping our notions of what it means to be an individual. Other actors from advertisers to government agencies can compile huge amounts of information about who we are and what we do. Whether they use it to recommend other products to buy or track our movements, Harcourt argues that the influence and interests of other actors is often hidden from us. Despite leaks of classified materials about the extent of this surveillance, public outrage is limited and mild. The scale of data collection and tracking is not a national let alone a global scandal. According to Exposed, are appetites are too well satisfied and our attentions too distracted. Harcourt prods us to practice digital disobedience, lest we will remain in a digital mesh that will only continue to restrict our privacy and anonymity underneath its beautiful, shiny suit. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The landscape described in Bernard Harcourt‘s new book is a dystopia saturated by pleasure. We do not live in a drab Orwellian world, he writes. We live in a beautiful, colorful, stimulating, digital world a rich, bright world full of passion and jouissance–and by means of which we reveal ourselves and make ourselves virtually transparent to surveillance. Exposed: Desire and Disobedience in the Digital Age (Harvard University Press, 2015) guides us through our new digital age, one that makes it so easy for others to monitor, profile, and shape our every desire. We are building what he calls the expository society a platform for unprecedented levels of exhibition, watching, and influence that is reconfiguring our political relations and reshaping our notions of what it means to be an individual. Other actors from advertisers to government agencies can compile huge amounts of information about who we are and what we do. Whether they use it to recommend other products to buy or track our movements, Harcourt argues that the influence and interests of other actors is often hidden from us. Despite leaks of classified materials about the extent of this surveillance, public outrage is limited and mild. The scale of data collection and tracking is not a national let alone a global scandal. According to Exposed, are appetites are too well satisfied and our attentions too distracted. Harcourt prods us to practice digital disobedience, lest we will remain in a digital mesh that will only continue to restrict our privacy and anonymity underneath its beautiful, shiny suit. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The landscape described in Bernard Harcourt‘s new book is a dystopia saturated by pleasure. We do not live in a drab Orwellian world, he writes. We live in a beautiful, colorful, stimulating, digital world a rich, bright world full of passion and jouissance–and by means of which we reveal ourselves and make ourselves virtually transparent to surveillance. Exposed: Desire and Disobedience in the Digital Age (Harvard University Press, 2015) guides us through our new digital age, one that makes it so easy for others to monitor, profile, and shape our every desire. We are building what he calls the expository society a platform for unprecedented levels of exhibition, watching, and influence that is reconfiguring our political relations and reshaping our notions of what it means to be an individual. Other actors from advertisers to government agencies can compile huge amounts of information about who we are and what we do. Whether they use it to recommend other products to buy or track our movements, Harcourt argues that the influence and interests of other actors is often hidden from us. Despite leaks of classified materials about the extent of this surveillance, public outrage is limited and mild. The scale of data collection and tracking is not a national let alone a global scandal. According to Exposed, are appetites are too well satisfied and our attentions too distracted. Harcourt prods us to practice digital disobedience, lest we will remain in a digital mesh that will only continue to restrict our privacy and anonymity underneath its beautiful, shiny suit. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The landscape described in Bernard Harcourt‘s new book is a dystopia saturated by pleasure. We do not live in a drab Orwellian world, he writes. We live in a beautiful, colorful, stimulating, digital world a rich, bright world full of passion and jouissance–and by means of which we reveal ourselves and make ourselves virtually transparent to surveillance. Exposed: Desire and Disobedience in the Digital Age (Harvard University Press, 2015) guides us through our new digital age, one that makes it so easy for others to monitor, profile, and shape our every desire. We are building what he calls the expository society a platform for unprecedented levels of exhibition, watching, and influence that is reconfiguring our political relations and reshaping our notions of what it means to be an individual. Other actors from advertisers to government agencies can compile huge amounts of information about who we are and what we do. Whether they use it to recommend other products to buy or track our movements, Harcourt argues that the influence and interests of other actors is often hidden from us. Despite leaks of classified materials about the extent of this surveillance, public outrage is limited and mild. The scale of data collection and tracking is not a national let alone a global scandal. According to Exposed, are appetites are too well satisfied and our attentions too distracted. Harcourt prods us to practice digital disobedience, lest we will remain in a digital mesh that will only continue to restrict our privacy and anonymity underneath its beautiful, shiny suit. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“One of the things that was most shocking to me getting into the media business, an MSNBC.com producer tells Josh Braun, was the realization that regular people were making it. Television to me . . . was just like sunlight. You push the button and it just comes off the screen. Today, television just comes off lots of screens. Computers, tablets, phones, city billboards, stadium jumbotrons. The path from the recording pictures to showing them to us their physical distribution is neither simple nor elegantly planned. In This Program is Brought to You By . . . Distributing Television Online (Yale University Press 2015), Joshua Braun, an Assistant Professor of Journalism Studies in the Journalism Department at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, explores changes in the technology platforms for online news at MSNBC between 2007 and 2012. A book of media sociology, Braun uses a series of examples at MSNBC such as a more flexible video player, online community forums, and a blog for the Rachel Maddow Show, to make an argument about the shapes these distribution solutions take. Developed through project-based management, involving multiple teams with differing objectives and resources, each solution is ultimately unique to the particular task at hand. These digital systems, he argues, are a sociological phenomenon that come together like physical infrastructure such as power grids and highways. Josh takes an inside look at MSNBC between 2007 and 2012, a time when the network was consolidating the brands of its television network and online news hub and rolling out new technologies internally like blogs, video players and community forums that could support viewer and visitor demands. This Program is Brought to You By unmasks the magic behind the pictures and sounds that just come off the screen. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“One of the things that was most shocking to me getting into the media business, an MSNBC.com producer tells Josh Braun, was the realization that regular people were making it. Television to me . . . was just like sunlight. You push the button and it just comes off the screen. Today, television just comes off lots of screens. Computers, tablets, phones, city billboards, stadium jumbotrons. The path from the recording pictures to showing them to us their physical distribution is neither simple nor elegantly planned. In This Program is Brought to You By . . . Distributing Television Online (Yale University Press 2015), Joshua Braun, an Assistant Professor of Journalism Studies in the Journalism Department at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, explores changes in the technology platforms for online news at MSNBC between 2007 and 2012. A book of media sociology, Braun uses a series of examples at MSNBC such as a more flexible video player, online community forums, and a blog for the Rachel Maddow Show, to make an argument about the shapes these distribution solutions take. Developed through project-based management, involving multiple teams with differing objectives and resources, each solution is ultimately unique to the particular task at hand. These digital systems, he argues, are a sociological phenomenon that come together like physical infrastructure such as power grids and highways. Josh takes an inside look at MSNBC between 2007 and 2012, a time when the network was consolidating the brands of its television network and online news hub and rolling out new technologies internally like blogs, video players and community forums that could support viewer and visitor demands. This Program is Brought to You By unmasks the magic behind the pictures and sounds that just come off the screen. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“One of the things that was most shocking to me getting into the media business, an MSNBC.com producer tells Josh Braun, was the realization that regular people were making it. Television to me . . . was just like sunlight. You push the button and it just comes off the screen. Today, television just comes off lots of screens. Computers, tablets, phones, city billboards, stadium jumbotrons. The path from the recording pictures to showing them to us their physical distribution is neither simple nor elegantly planned. In This Program is Brought to You By . . . Distributing Television Online (Yale University Press 2015), Joshua Braun, an Assistant Professor of Journalism Studies in the Journalism Department at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, explores changes in the technology platforms for online news at MSNBC between 2007 and 2012. A book of media sociology, Braun uses a series of examples at MSNBC such as a more flexible video player, online community forums, and a blog for the Rachel Maddow Show, to make an argument about the shapes these distribution solutions take. Developed through project-based management, involving multiple teams with differing objectives and resources, each solution is ultimately unique to the particular task at hand. These digital systems, he argues, are a sociological phenomenon that come together like physical infrastructure such as power grids and highways. Josh takes an inside look at MSNBC between 2007 and 2012, a time when the network was consolidating the brands of its television network and online news hub and rolling out new technologies internally like blogs, video players and community forums that could support viewer and visitor demands. This Program is Brought to You By unmasks the magic behind the pictures and sounds that just come off the screen. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“One of the things that was most shocking to me getting into the media business, an MSNBC.com producer tells Josh Braun, was the realization that regular people were making it. Television to me . . . was just like sunlight. You push the button and it just comes off the screen. Today, television just comes off lots of screens. Computers, tablets, phones, city billboards, stadium jumbotrons. The path from the recording pictures to showing them to us their physical distribution is neither simple nor elegantly planned. In This Program is Brought to You By . . . Distributing Television Online (Yale University Press 2015), Joshua Braun, an Assistant Professor of Journalism Studies in the Journalism Department at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, explores changes in the technology platforms for online news at MSNBC between 2007 and 2012. A book of media sociology, Braun uses a series of examples at MSNBC such as a more flexible video player, online community forums, and a blog for the Rachel Maddow Show, to make an argument about the shapes these distribution solutions take. Developed through project-based management, involving multiple teams with differing objectives and resources, each solution is ultimately unique to the particular task at hand. These digital systems, he argues, are a sociological phenomenon that come together like physical infrastructure such as power grids and highways. Josh takes an inside look at MSNBC between 2007 and 2012, a time when the network was consolidating the brands of its television network and online news hub and rolling out new technologies internally like blogs, video players and community forums that could support viewer and visitor demands. This Program is Brought to You By unmasks the magic behind the pictures and sounds that just come off the screen. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“One of the things that was most shocking to me getting into the media business, an MSNBC.com producer tells Josh Braun, was the realization that regular people were making it. Television to me . . . was just like sunlight. You push the button and it just comes off the screen. Today, television just comes off lots of screens. Computers, tablets, phones, city billboards, stadium jumbotrons. The path from the recording pictures to showing them to us their physical distribution is neither simple nor elegantly planned. In This Program is Brought to You By . . . Distributing Television Online (Yale University Press 2015), Joshua Braun, an Assistant Professor of Journalism Studies in the Journalism Department at University of Massachusetts-Amherst, explores changes in the technology platforms for online news at MSNBC between 2007 and 2012. A book of media sociology, Braun uses a series of examples at MSNBC such as a more flexible video player, online community forums, and a blog for the Rachel Maddow Show, to make an argument about the shapes these distribution solutions take. Developed through project-based management, involving multiple teams with differing objectives and resources, each solution is ultimately unique to the particular task at hand. These digital systems, he argues, are a sociological phenomenon that come together like physical infrastructure such as power grids and highways. Josh takes an inside look at MSNBC between 2007 and 2012, a time when the network was consolidating the brands of its television network and online news hub and rolling out new technologies internally like blogs, video players and community forums that could support viewer and visitor demands. This Program is Brought to You By unmasks the magic behind the pictures and sounds that just come off the screen. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are said to be in a golden age of TV. The best stories today are told on television screens in serialized forms. The Wire, Lost, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos are a few of the shows that have elevated the cache of television, introducing riskier forms of storytelling in a medium that has been typically formulaic and convention bound. Fans and critics alike celebrate them for innovation and television networks are filled programming with more and more of them. In Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television (NYU Press 2015), is film and television scholar Jason Mittell of Middlebury College offers a sustained analysis of the poetics of television narrative, focusing on how storytelling has changed in recent years and how viewers make sense of these innovations. Complex television, Mittell says, is not a genre. It is a storytelling mode and set of associated production and reception practices that span a wide range of programs across an array of genres. Through close analyses of key programs, includingThe Wire, Lost, Veronica Mars, and Mad Mento name a four, the book traces the emergence of this narrative mode, focusing on issues such as viewer comprehension, transmedia storytelling, serial authorship, character change, and cultural evaluation. Developing a television-specific set of narrative theories, Complex TV argues that television is the most vital and important storytelling medium of our time. It is not that the best stories today are on the small screen. Rather, that the most sophisticated, freshest, and the most complex techniques for telling them are. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are said to be in a golden age of TV. The best stories today are told on television screens in serialized forms. The Wire, Lost, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos are a few of the shows that have elevated the cache of television, introducing riskier forms of storytelling in a medium that has been typically formulaic and convention bound. Fans and critics alike celebrate them for innovation and television networks are filled programming with more and more of them. In Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television (NYU Press 2015), is film and television scholar Jason Mittell of Middlebury College offers a sustained analysis of the poetics of television narrative, focusing on how storytelling has changed in recent years and how viewers make sense of these innovations. Complex television, Mittell says, is not a genre. It is a storytelling mode and set of associated production and reception practices that span a wide range of programs across an array of genres. Through close analyses of key programs, includingThe Wire, Lost, Veronica Mars, and Mad Mento name a four, the book traces the emergence of this narrative mode, focusing on issues such as viewer comprehension, transmedia storytelling, serial authorship, character change, and cultural evaluation. Developing a television-specific set of narrative theories, Complex TV argues that television is the most vital and important storytelling medium of our time. It is not that the best stories today are on the small screen. Rather, that the most sophisticated, freshest, and the most complex techniques for telling them are. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are said to be in a golden age of TV. The best stories today are told on television screens in serialized forms. The Wire, Lost, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos are a few of the shows that have elevated the cache of television, introducing riskier forms of storytelling in a medium that has been typically formulaic and convention bound. Fans and critics alike celebrate them for innovation and television networks are filled programming with more and more of them. In Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television (NYU Press 2015), is film and television scholar Jason Mittell of Middlebury College offers a sustained analysis of the poetics of television narrative, focusing on how storytelling has changed in recent years and how viewers make sense of these innovations. Complex television, Mittell says, is not a genre. It is a storytelling mode and set of associated production and reception practices that span a wide range of programs across an array of genres. Through close analyses of key programs, includingThe Wire, Lost, Veronica Mars, and Mad Mento name a four, the book traces the emergence of this narrative mode, focusing on issues such as viewer comprehension, transmedia storytelling, serial authorship, character change, and cultural evaluation. Developing a television-specific set of narrative theories, Complex TV argues that television is the most vital and important storytelling medium of our time. It is not that the best stories today are on the small screen. Rather, that the most sophisticated, freshest, and the most complex techniques for telling them are. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We are said to be in a golden age of TV. The best stories today are told on television screens in serialized forms. The Wire, Lost, Breaking Bad, The Sopranos are a few of the shows that have elevated the cache of television, introducing riskier forms of storytelling in a medium that has been typically formulaic and convention bound. Fans and critics alike celebrate them for innovation and television networks are filled programming with more and more of them. In Complex TV: The Poetics of Contemporary Television (NYU Press 2015), is film and television scholar Jason Mittell of Middlebury College offers a sustained analysis of the poetics of television narrative, focusing on how storytelling has changed in recent years and how viewers make sense of these innovations. Complex television, Mittell says, is not a genre. It is a storytelling mode and set of associated production and reception practices that span a wide range of programs across an array of genres. Through close analyses of key programs, includingThe Wire, Lost, Veronica Mars, and Mad Mento name a four, the book traces the emergence of this narrative mode, focusing on issues such as viewer comprehension, transmedia storytelling, serial authorship, character change, and cultural evaluation. Developing a television-specific set of narrative theories, Complex TV argues that television is the most vital and important storytelling medium of our time. It is not that the best stories today are on the small screen. Rather, that the most sophisticated, freshest, and the most complex techniques for telling them are. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow him on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Teenagers live in their phones. As an educator you can try to pull them away or meet them where they are. The 160-Character Solution: How Text Messaging and Other Behavioral Strategies Can Improve Education (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015) urges educators to meet teens on their must-have device. Author Benjamin Castleman of the University of Virginia shows how text messaging combined with insights from behavioral science―more specifically the fields of behavioral economics and social psychology―can be leveraged to help students complete assignments, perform to their full potential on tests, and choose schools and colleges where they are well positioned for success. In his own research, Castleman has studied how to use personalized text messages to reduce “summer melt,” in which up to 40 percent of high school graduates who have been accepted to college, mostly from underserved communities, fail to show up for the fall semester. Behavioral strategies extend beyond texting and even beyond smartphone technology. By focusing on behavioral changes, Castleman demonstrates that small tweaks in how we ask questions, design applications, and tailor reminders can lead to better decision making and have remarkable impacts on student and school success. The 160-Character Solution makes a broader case for employing these behavioral strategies to improve educational outcomes from preschool all the way to college. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Teenagers live in their phones. As an educator you can try to pull them away or meet them where they are. The 160-Character Solution: How Text Messaging and Other Behavioral Strategies Can Improve Education (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015) urges educators to meet teens on their must-have device. Author Benjamin Castleman of the University of Virginia shows how text messaging combined with insights from behavioral science―more specifically the fields of behavioral economics and social psychology―can be leveraged to help students complete assignments, perform to their full potential on tests, and choose schools and colleges where they are well positioned for success. In his own research, Castleman has studied how to use personalized text messages to reduce “summer melt,” in which up to 40 percent of high school graduates who have been accepted to college, mostly from underserved communities, fail to show up for the fall semester. Behavioral strategies extend beyond texting and even beyond smartphone technology. By focusing on behavioral changes, Castleman demonstrates that small tweaks in how we ask questions, design applications, and tailor reminders can lead to better decision making and have remarkable impacts on student and school success. The 160-Character Solution makes a broader case for employing these behavioral strategies to improve educational outcomes from preschool all the way to college. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Teenagers live in their phones. As an educator you can try to pull them away or meet them where they are. The 160-Character Solution: How Text Messaging and Other Behavioral Strategies Can Improve Education (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015) urges educators to meet teens on their must-have device. Author Benjamin Castleman of the University of Virginia shows how text messaging combined with insights from behavioral science―more specifically the fields of behavioral economics and social psychology―can be leveraged to help students complete assignments, perform to their full potential on tests, and choose schools and colleges where they are well positioned for success. In his own research, Castleman has studied how to use personalized text messages to reduce “summer melt,” in which up to 40 percent of high school graduates who have been accepted to college, mostly from underserved communities, fail to show up for the fall semester. Behavioral strategies extend beyond texting and even beyond smartphone technology. By focusing on behavioral changes, Castleman demonstrates that small tweaks in how we ask questions, design applications, and tailor reminders can lead to better decision making and have remarkable impacts on student and school success. The 160-Character Solution makes a broader case for employing these behavioral strategies to improve educational outcomes from preschool all the way to college. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Teenagers live in their phones. As an educator you can try to pull them away or meet them where they are. The 160-Character Solution: How Text Messaging and Other Behavioral Strategies Can Improve Education (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015) urges educators to meet teens on their must-have device. Author Benjamin Castleman of the University of Virginia shows how text messaging combined with insights from behavioral science―more specifically the fields of behavioral economics and social psychology―can be leveraged to help students complete assignments, perform to their full potential on tests, and choose schools and colleges where they are well positioned for success. In his own research, Castleman has studied how to use personalized text messages to reduce “summer melt,” in which up to 40 percent of high school graduates who have been accepted to college, mostly from underserved communities, fail to show up for the fall semester. Behavioral strategies extend beyond texting and even beyond smartphone technology. By focusing on behavioral changes, Castleman demonstrates that small tweaks in how we ask questions, design applications, and tailor reminders can lead to better decision making and have remarkable impacts on student and school success. The 160-Character Solution makes a broader case for employing these behavioral strategies to improve educational outcomes from preschool all the way to college. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Teenagers live in their phones. As an educator you can try to pull them away or meet them where they are. The 160-Character Solution: How Text Messaging and Other Behavioral Strategies Can Improve Education (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015) urges educators to meet teens on their must-have device. Author Benjamin Castleman of the University of Virginia shows how text messaging combined with insights from behavioral science―more specifically the fields of behavioral economics and social psychology―can be leveraged to help students complete assignments, perform to their full potential on tests, and choose schools and colleges where they are well positioned for success. In his own research, Castleman has studied how to use personalized text messages to reduce “summer melt,” in which up to 40 percent of high school graduates who have been accepted to college, mostly from underserved communities, fail to show up for the fall semester. Behavioral strategies extend beyond texting and even beyond smartphone technology. By focusing on behavioral changes, Castleman demonstrates that small tweaks in how we ask questions, design applications, and tailor reminders can lead to better decision making and have remarkable impacts on student and school success. The 160-Character Solution makes a broader case for employing these behavioral strategies to improve educational outcomes from preschool all the way to college. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Teenagers live in their phones. As an educator you can try to pull them away or meet them where they are. The 160-Character Solution: How Text Messaging and Other Behavioral Strategies Can Improve Education (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015) urges educators to meet teens on their must-have device. Author Benjamin Castleman of the University of Virginia shows how text messaging combined with insights from behavioral science―more specifically the fields of behavioral economics and social psychology―can be leveraged to help students complete assignments, perform to their full potential on tests, and choose schools and colleges where they are well positioned for success. In his own research, Castleman has studied how to use personalized text messages to reduce “summer melt,” in which up to 40 percent of high school graduates who have been accepted to college, mostly from underserved communities, fail to show up for the fall semester. Behavioral strategies extend beyond texting and even beyond smartphone technology. By focusing on behavioral changes, Castleman demonstrates that small tweaks in how we ask questions, design applications, and tailor reminders can lead to better decision making and have remarkable impacts on student and school success. The 160-Character Solution makes a broader case for employing these behavioral strategies to improve educational outcomes from preschool all the way to college. John Balz is Director of Strategy at VML, a full-service marketing agency with offices around the globe. He has spent his career applying behavioral science strategies in the marketing and advertising field through direct mail and email, display and .coms, mobile messaging, e-commerce and social media. You can follow on Twitter @Nudgeblog and contact him at nudgeblog@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices