We Know What You Want: How They Change Your Mind

We Know What You Want: How They Change Your Mind, Martin Howard, The Disinformation Company Ltd., 2005

The marketers and public relations firms of this world are constantly improving the myriad of ways they have to get inside your head and manipulate you to their way of thinking. This book looks at some of them.

Today's supermarkets intentionally place popular items, like milk and bread, as far from the entrance as possible. That way, the shopper must pass all those impulse items at the end of each aisle. Also, they are subjected to muzak tracks that will cause them to ignore their shopping lists and stay longer. Have you ever heard of the Gruen Transfer? It describes the moment when a shopper loses control of the decision-making process, characterized by suggestibility and glazed eyes. It is at this time that a shopper is most likely to make an unplanned purchase.

At the local sports stadium, is there any surface, except for the player's uniforms and the field itself, that doesn't have a corporate logo? You have probably seen Video News Releases, slick corporate promotions and government messages designed to look like news, even if you have never heard of them. The book also looks at how to engineer public opinion, through front groups, paid experts and targeted messages.

Ebay has said that will ignore their own privacy policy if law enforcement is looking for information on a specific person, and hand over that information without a court order. Everyone is familiar with cookies, spam and spyware on your computer. Not everyone knows that Kazaa software embeds extra, hard-to-find, programs on your computer. They send information on your viewing habits to third-party servers. Advertising and subliminal messages are among the newest trends in computer games. This book also includes a list of actual patents for inventions that involve "regulated subconscious behavioral control by invisible means."

This is a first-rate gem of a book. It is really easy to read. While some might consider the information in this book common knowledge, it is still a rather spooky look at how well They have gotten inside our heads. It is very much recommended.

This Is the Place

This Is The Place, Carolyn Howard-Johnson, America House Publishers, 2000

This novel is about Mormon culture in 1950s Utah. It's also about the sting of bigotry and intolerance, and how it can be disguised as love and acceptance.

Sky (short for Skylar) Eccles is a young woman with several "strikes" against her. In the insular Mormon community, she is considered a half-breed (in her case, her father was Mormon and her mother was Protestant, the religion under which she was raised). She is unmarried; Mormon women are supposed to marry young, stay home and have lots of children. Sky agrees to marry a man named Archer Benson, a man about as true-blue Mormon as they come. But they decide not to have a Temple wedding (not to get married in the Mormon church), a decision which doesn't go over well with the relatives. Not only does Sky work outside the home, she writes for the Other Newspaper in Utah, the Salt Lake Tribune, the one not owned by the Mormons.

Raised with something of a double identity, Sky is forced to look at her own family history, containing several instances of women who entered into mixed marriages. Her career in journalism clarifies her vision of herself and her ancestors. Suffering a series of devastating events, Sky begins to see that her future is up to her, that she must find her own way in the world.

This is a fine piece of writing. It gives quite a look inside a culture with which few outsiders are familiar, it's a "quiet" book that says a lot, the characters are real people, and, overall, it's well worth reading.